


Expansion

by Comicbooklovergreen



Series: More than One Kind of Soulmate [7]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Carol (2015), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Co-parenting sucks, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Family Adjustment, Fluff, Got angstier than I meant, Multi, Newborn, OT3, Sibling Jealousy, Stegginelli, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicbooklovergreen/pseuds/Comicbooklovergreen
Summary: In November 1955, the child of Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter is born. Therese Belivet takes the first photos of America's Child. The child's extended family (and the world) are never the same.Also, Harge and Carol are dysfunctional parents, because change doesn't come easy.Two unconventional families form an unbreakable bond. Tracing a friendship and a family through the years.





	1. Chapter 1

“This is Jakey. You want to know something cool about Jakey? He came out of my Mommy’s—”

“Elizabeth!”

Lizzie gave Angie a startled look. “Stomach. Right, Mama, didn’t he?”

Angie closed her eyes, muttered something in Italian. “Yes, baby, yes he did.”

Carol laughed. “What did you expect her to say?”

Angie rolled her eyes. “Abby came over the other day to drop off some stuff for the nursery. She was alone with the kid for at least five minutes, answering questions. Been saying all kinds of fun things since then.”

“Sorry,” Carol said, not sounding it at all. “Peggy, he’s beautiful.”

“He’s bald,” Lizzie said, pointing this out to Rindy in case she’d missed it.

“Some babies are,” Steve said, with the air of someone who’d explained the same thing several times.

“I wasn’t,” said Lizzie, grinning proudly at the accomplishment.

Carol smiled, pulling Rindy into a hug and kissing her hair. “This one was.”

“Mommy!” Rindy squirmed in Carol’s hold. “I was not!”

“I have pictures that say otherwise, sweet pea.”

Therese smiled at the antics. ‘Jakey’ was Jacob Michael Rogers, a few days old and very, very loved already. Even if his sister’s excitement at the arrival was already waning.

“He’s so little, Aunt Peggy!”

Rindy’s voice was strained as she struggled to obey Carol’s rule about staying quiet. Peggy smiled from her place on the sofa, let Rindy trail a light finger across his forehead. “He is, isn’t he?”

“He’s so pretty!”

Lizzie shrugged before her mother could answer. “He’s okay. He mostly just cries and sleeps and pees on people.”

Steve came around the sofa and hauled Lizzie over his shoulder. “Well we’re very sorry, Miss Elizabeth, that your brother isn’t providing you with proper entertainment.”

Lizzie managed to shrug while being placed over Steve’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “I liked when he peed on uncle Howard.”

“We all did, baby, we all did,” Angie said.

* * *

 

“Look at them, English, you’re making them uncomfortable.” Angie said, clearly very happy about this.

“If either of you wants to do this yourself, be my guest,” Peggy said, not looking up from where she was feeding Jacob. “Oh Carol for God’s sake, you at least should be able to handle this like a grownup.”

Angie grinned as Carol and Therese tried very hard not to look at Peggy’s breasts. “Please. Jersey’s a snob; you know damn well she never did this.”

Carol muttered something incomprehensible about Rindy and formula.

“Formula’s for rich snobs,” Angie said. “You think my mother had formula? Between my younger sister and all my brothers, I saw more of her tits than my old man did.”

Lacking a proper response to this, Therese shared a look with Carol and nodded, mute.

“And stuff’s different over the pond,” Angie continued conversationally. “They don’t give a fu--” she stopped abruptly as Rindy and Lizzie reentered the room, “fig over there. Straight from the source, right Peg?”

Peggy hummed agreement while Jacob took his meal, blissfully unaware of the stir he was causing.

Rindy meanwhile was utterly fascinated by the whole thing and shot out question after question about how it worked and why and for how long. Angie and Steve answered patiently. “Does Daddy know about this?” was Rindy’s next question, eyes wide as she addressed Carol.

“Probably not,” Carol said.

“Can you do it too, Auntie?”

“I did it for Lizzie,” Angie replied. “Peg’s got to do it for Jake.”

“Oh,” Rindy said as Lizzie crawled onto the opposite couch, where Peggy sat with Jake and calmly leaned into Peggy’s side. If seeing her brother fed had ever counted as a spectacle, it didn’t anymore.

“He’s supposed to be James,” Lizzie said. “You were supposed to call him James.”

Therese looked up at that, temporarily distracted from how badly she and Carol were embarrassing themselves. She remembered it too, a conversation months ago (was it before or after Peggy became pregnant?) about how any Rogers son would go by James Steven. And here was Jacob Michael.

“And you were supposed to be Americus. Things change,” Steve said. He was sitting in an armchair with Angie in his lap.

Lizzie made a face. “That’s stupid.”

“Don’t use that word. And be glad things change,” Steve replied.

“You would _not_ have named me that!” Lizzie said on a gasp of horror, glaring at Peggy.

"Americus Seraphina Saorise Martinelli-Rogers. A terribly competitive union between Italian and Irish immigrants in which no one wins." Peggy didn’t react to the look.

“Angel references and Latin words count for Italian, so Nonna would’ve gotten off my back,” Angie said.

“You would not call me that!” Lizzie said again.

“We would’ve called you Merry, or Amerina” Peggy said mildly. “Would’ve been adorable. The vultures in the press would’ve eaten it up. Present company excluded, Therese.”

 “Star spangled baby clothes,” said Angie. “Would’ve been amazing.”

“James is posh,” Lizzie said, putting the focus back on Jacob. Perhaps she feared the note of wistfulness in Angie’s voice. “Jake is common.”

 “She wants James so she can call him Jimmy. Olsen, like those Superman shows. The child has actual superheroes for parents and an actual photographer as an aunt, but she still has to name her brother after a fake photographer in a fake superhero show.” Angie sighed loudly.

“James is posh,” Lizzie persisted stubbornly.

“James isn’t your brother,” said Steve. “Jake or Jacob is.”

Therese noticed that tone again, as if he’d explained this many times in Jacob’s short life.

“If Aunt Peggy feeds Jacob and Aunt Angie fed Lizzie, what do yours do?”

Rindy’s question came out of nowhere. She might’ve been mulling it over the last several minutes without hearing a word of the name debate.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Carol asked, frowning at her daughter.

Rindy walked to where Steve sat with Angie, reaching over to poke at his chest. “Yours. These. Do they make milk too?”

“Rindy!” Carol scolded once it became clear that Rindy was inquiring about Steve’s nipples. Angie laughed enough that she startled Jacob and received a glare from Peggy. As much as Peggy could muster anyway, with her lips curling at the edges.

“No,” Steve replied, stuttering and turning red. “No they uh, they don’t do that.”

“You got big and strong and you can throw your shield really far, but you can’t make milk?”

“No, Rindy, I, I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Yes Steve, why?” Angie asked, curling in on herself as she kept laughing. “Howard missed the mark on that one, didn’t he?”

“If they can’t make milk, what are they for?” Rindy asked.

“They’re, uh, they’re decoration?”

Rindy gave him an appraising look so like one of Carol’s that Therese had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing harder than Angie and startling Jacob again.

“That’s stupid,” Rindy said finally.

“Rindy.” Carol groaned, ducking her face against Therese’s shoulder.

 “They’re not just decoration,” Angie said. “They’re also two of Aunt Peggy’s favorite toys.”

Angie pinched Steve’s chest through his shirt and he swatted her away

“Oh. Really?” Rindy asked.

Peggy confirmed this without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

A few minutes later, after Lizzie’s interest in her brother had waned and she’d temporarily dragged Rindy from the room, Angie spoke again. “It is kinda depressing though.”

“What’s that?” Carol asked.

“Peg’s tits.”

Peggy looked up, eyebrows raised. “You find those depressing, do you?”

“Nah, just the part where they used to be just mine. You and me at first, then Soldier here comes back and I have to share. I mean yeah, Steve’s boobs are almost as big as yours so it almost evens out, but still. Now I’m sharing my territory with two guys.”

“Mmm. Well, I shared my territory too, with Steve and Lizzie. But I’m truly, truly sorry for all those horrendous sacrifices you’ve made, Angie.”

“Eh, I’ll live. Anyway, it’s fun seeing which of you will have bigger tits now.”

“As long as you’re properly entertained, darling.”

* * *

 

 “You’ve got it so bad. It’s disgusting.”

Carol glanced at Angie. “Got what, exactly?”

“It. Bad. For her. It’s lovely and disgusting.”

Angie nodded toward Therese. She was in the living room, her camera snapping away as she took pictures of the baby. Jacob with Steve, with Peggy, one or both of the girls. Therese had made that deal with Whitmore, but only a fraction of the pictures would ever touch his desk.

“And this is news to you?” Carol asked, chopping vegetables that Rindy wouldn’t eat anyway. She and Angie were in the kitchen, making lunch for those who hadn’t eaten already.

“Just extra obvious today,” Angie said. “She’s getting better at that.”

Therese had dropped her photographer duties for now, been persuaded to take Jacob into her arms. She was smiling, a marked improvement from earlier when she’d flatly refused to touch him, on the grounds that she’d never held a baby in her life.

Angie was predictably understanding about this. She pointed out that a four and a seven-year-old had already done it, and made fun of Therese until she gave in. Carol helped her and didn’t comment on the fact that Rindy was indeed less skittish over the whole thing.

“You going to have more kids?”

Carol blinked at Angie’s comment, casual as anything. “Sorry?”

Angie rolled her eyes. “You heard me. That dopey smile, I’ve seen it on girls not near as pretty. Baby rabies. Looks the same even on rich, pretty, snobs.”

She’d gotten used to Angie easily and often calling her a snob, but this was new. “You must be terribly sleep-deprived; your head’s not working properly.”

“I have eyes,” Angie said on a shrug. “So, are you?”

Carol laughed, suddenly wished for a cigarette. “I know you have a set of each, darling, but for the rest of us it’s not so easy.” Easy to talk about kids when you had both a husband and wife, essentially.

“So adopt.”

“Adopt. The divorced, single woman known as America’s Mistress?”

“The financially stable business owner who lives on Madison Avenue and has a healthy, thriving little girl already. Things ain’t what they were, Jersey, it’s not like fifteen years ago. All those orphanages Steve toured, Captain America the hero orphan himself, you think a recommendation from him and Peg wouldn’t hold weight? Or from the lovely and talented Angela Martin for that matter?”

Carol laughed again as Angie batted her eyelashes, used her ‘Broadway’ voice. She looked back at Therese on the sofa with Jacob, made herself not look. “She doesn’t want children.”

“She said that?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Awhile ago,” Carol said, deliberately vague as she paid the veggies more attention than needed. She could feel Angie scrutinizing her.

“In reference to whom?”

“What?”

“Was she talking about your children, or Dicky’s?”

Carol still didn’t know whether it was Abby or Angie who first coined the name for Therese’s ex. “She may have been recounting something about Richard, I’m not sure.”

“Well, there you go. You’re not Dicky.”

Carol huffed out a breath. “That does not mean she’ll be rushing to have my children, you imbecile.” She’d called Angie nitwit once, in front of Abby, and the jealousy wasn’t worth the hassle.

“Have you talked about it?”

“It hasn’t come up.”

“Well.”

Carol put the knife down, stopped pretending to care about side dishes. “You are insufferably pushy.”

“Yeah? How do you think I landed Peg? Imbecile,” Angie added, poking her in the side.

Carol tapped her fingernails along the countertop. “She’s young.”

Angie made a rude noise. “My mother had half of us popped out and in diapers by her age.”

“She’s got her job. An actual career, maybe, now that that bastard Whitmore is on notice.”

“She can multitask. If she wants to. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t.”

Angie shrugged again like it was nothing, just that simple. Carol swallowed and lifted her eyes to the other room. Rindy was sitting next to Therese, asking if she could practice with the camera so that Therese could be in some pictures too. Carol should’ve gone in there and diverted Rindy, not let her risk damaging the camera or the film on such an important day. Except Therese smiled and reminded her what to touch and not touch, and Peggy took the camera, took Rindy’s hand, and went to help her set up the shot.

“Rindy doesn’t,” Carol swallowed against an odd tightness in her throat. “Rindy only gets so much of me, of us, as it is. It wouldn’t be fair, making her lose more attention to someone else.”

Angie said nothing for a moment, just reached a hand up to squeeze Carol’s on the counter. “Well. Ever change your mind and you’re still twitchy about the adoption thing, you can borrow Steve.”

Carol stared, her sudden onset of whatever the hell this was temporarily forgotten. “Say again?”

Angie let her hand go and dug around one of the upper cabinets until she found a loaf of bread. “He’s already whored himself out for the sake of science and country. Favor for a friend, I’m sure he could manage.” Angie pulled open a drawer and found a knife, started cutting the bread.

“Are you offering up your husband to knock up my wife?”

“Or you, whichever works. If you want.”

“Shouldn’t you consult him about that first?”

“We’ll consult if and when the time comes, but I’m sure he’d do it.”

“Why would you be sure of that?”

“He’s nice. And Peg and I would tell him to. Get me the butter, would you, Jersey?” Angie made a vague gesture toward the icebox with her free hand.

Carol shook her head and crossed the kitchen, saw Steve from the corner of her eye hauling Lizzie over his arm so she wouldn’t run in front of the camera. “You’re too kind. And if you say anything to Therese about this, or anything involving rabies, your children will be down to the normal number of parents.”

Angie snorted. “I’d like to see you try, Jersey.”


	2. Chapter 2

Therese leaned against the table in her darkroom, though the light was on now, the shots safely developed. She smiled to herself at the pictures of Jacob and his family, more than she realized she’d taken.

The sound of Carol’s heels on the hall floor preceded a knock at the door. Therese smiled again, this time at Carol’s thoughtfulness. She’d see the light on, know it was safe to come in, but she always knocked first, always asked. “It’s open!” Therese called.

Carol stepped inside. The sound of whatever Rindy was watching on TV filtered in before Carol shut the door. “Look at you. Such a bigshot you have to work on Thanksgiving.”

The affectionate drawl had Therese feeling warm and light as she half-turned to look at Carol. “It’s not Thanksgiving. I’m actually still not sure if it’s supposed to be that or Christmas.”

Jacob Rogers came into the world on November 18th. Peggy made it quite clear that they would not be going through the ordeal of Thanksgiving less than a week later, calendar be damned.  Hence the first Saturday in December, with Therese and Carol invited to a party for a late holiday or an early one. Not that it mattered really. Rindy always missed Thanksgiving with them because of the dates. It would be nice to do something among friends, even though the three of them always had their own celebration the day after Thanksgiving, when Rindy was allowed to be there.

Therese sighed in contentment as Carol walked up to her, slender arms holding her from behind. “I’ll be ready in a minute, I just want to have these sorted so Steve and the girls can look through them later.” She’d waited, given Jacob’s parents time with their son before the rest of the world got him as well, but a deal was a deal, and Whitmore was salivating. It was Peggy who told Therese to bring the shots. Several would be in the paper by Monday.

Carol hummed, kissed the shell of Therese’s ear. “Take your time, darling.”

Therese reached back a hand, casually grazing the spot on Carol’s neck that smelt of perfume. The scent and Carol’s warm breath made it hard to concentrate on much else. “Did you finish cooking?”

Their friends had a newborn and a four-year-old adjusting to her new lot in life as a sibling. Angie told them they didn’t have to bring anything, only if they had time and inclination. Carol agreed, hung up the phone, then told Therese it would be indecent and inhumane not to bring something.

“I did,” Carol said. “Let’s hope it’s not a repeat of Christmas ’41. God-awful holiday.”

Therese frowned. “Pearl Harbor?” she asked. The attack wasn’t long before Christmas, Therese’s first at the orphanage.

“What? No. My first holiday with Harge’s parents. I brought a side dish. His mother said it looked like what her mother used to feed the family dog.”

Therese tried and failed at holding off a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll get a better reception this year.”

Carol pinched her arm lightly, then let that hand drift downward, dancing over the photos without quite touching them, never risking a smudge. She lingered on one in particular, her finger stilling just over the image.

There sat Steve, larger than life, but looking softer than ever in his 'layabout' clothing, a term Therese hadn’t known existed before meeting Peggy. The soft color of Therese's new camera (a gift from Carol after the successful confrontation with Whitmore, though Therese refused to part with the old one) gave wonder to the image, contrasting the soft yellow of the baby's blanket, and the scuffed, fading blue of Steve's pleated jeans, the richer blue of his button up.

To his side stood Rindy, leaning against the edge of the couch on crossed arms, chin on her folded hands as she smiled down at the baby, looking the proper little princess in the dress her grandmother had insisted she needed, despite Carol's argument that that much lace and taffeta did not belong on a child, nor did that particular shade of pink. (Rindy was thrilled about today, but told Carol in no uncertain terms that she would not wear that dress again. Carol hadn’t pressed the issue).

To his other side, standing up on the couch cushions and looking a complete trainwreck of a princess, was Lizzie. Her hair half curled, half pulled loose, her dress no longer pressed, with a pair of blue jeans on underneath, and bare feet pushing into the cushion as she leaned on tiptoe, hand on Steve's shoulder to balance herself, a look of consternation contrasting Rindy's expression of love, and Steve's absolute adoration.

“What do you think?” Therese asked.

“It’s a winner,” Carol said, even and without doubt.

“In your book, or in the world of photography?”

“Yes.”

Therese smiled, felt Carol’s chin rest lightly against her hair. She watched Carol’s hand drift on to other shots. Peggy with Jacob in the nursery, in the rocker Abby had sent over from the shop, purchased herself. Angie with Lizzie in her lap during the short period when the latter was somewhat presentable, Angie adjusting the pillow Lizzie would use moments later to help her hold Jacob. Carol with Rindy on her hip so she could get a proper look into Jacob’s bassinet.

Therese sensed it more than anything, a small change in the air between them, something that lingered faintly ever since meeting Jacob. Carol hadn’t said it, of course she wouldn’t have, but Therese could imagine what this might be doing to her. Therese did her best to document Rindy’s life with them, but that was only a small portion of the whole. Most of Rindy’s firsts, her moments of excitement and happiness, Carol heard about them after the fact, through a phone line or in person, days later.

“Carol,” Therese said, fighting the old guilt about Rindy, wondering if she had a right to fight it at all. “I know you want, I know Rindy…” She couldn’t get it out, felt a light squeeze on her hip just before Carol turned her, made them face each other.

“Rindy,” Carol said in a voice that would’ve seemed completely steady to anyone else, “is right outside that door. I have two beautiful, perfect girls in my life and I couldn’t be happier.” Carol kissed her, framed Therese’s face between her hands like a picture she wanted to keep forever. “But I will not go from fashionably late to rude, and if we don’t leave in five minutes, the next of Rindy’s five favorite shows will start, and leaving will be much more difficult. So, gather up those pictures, fix the lipstick I just ruined, and meet us by the front door, won’t you?”

Therese studied Carol a moment, leaned in to ruin the lipstick further, and told Carol that yes, she would.

* * *

 “So then,” the man with the Santa beard and the bowler hat said, nearly choking on his drink, “I stop by the tent, ready to do the respectable thing and thank this gal for fixing up our Jeep, give her a proper goodbye before we have to go back to driving around in the dark getting shot at.”

Dugan took another swig of his drink. The fake beard did not match his mustache, and he pulled on it whenever he was nearing the punchline to one of his stories. Beside him sat Gabriel Jones. Across from them was Jim Morita, next to his wife Amy whose proper name was Akemi, so Therese had learned after introduction, whispered by Angie, "Amy's her Angela" she had explained at Therese's confused expression. They'd brought two children, a girl and a boy both a bit older than Rindy. They’d been quiet but behaved all night.

Therese was having dinner with the Howling Commandos. Three of them anyway, men she’d only ever seen on newsreels or in the papers. And Dugan (Angie kept telling her to call him Dum Dum, but she simply couldn’t) was playing Santa for the children while recounting war stories and chugging beer. Rindy had questioned his identity, his bowler hat not being proper Christmas garb. He said he was trying a new look.

Carol had leaned in and whispered that Therese looked much better in a Santa hat anyway.

“So I go in there,” Dugan continued, “hat in hand, you know,” he lifted his hat briefly but didn’t remove it, “and what do I see? Well,” he glanced around the table, “small ears, so we have to go with the redacted version, but in a nutshell? Cap’s lucky that shield is so big, he could at least cover the essentials. And Peggy, what’s that word again?” He snapped his fingers as if summoning it. “Knickers! Were those your knickers or hers? Anyway, here’s Peg and Cap and this mechanic, and the gal looks at me while my commanding officers are still giving her a proper goodbye, and she says, 'Well Timothy. Did you require another tune-up?'”

There was a collective burst of laughter from those old enough to understand. Lizzie and Rindy were paying very selective attention, more concerned with the box of dime store soldiers Therese had bought for Lizzie. They were shared amongst the two girls and the Morita children (Lizzie had doled them out equally without being told), undertaking precarious offensives at the edge of the table. Ana Jarvis smiled while Rindy explained that her sergeant had to make it behind the yam bowl if he wanted to find safety from Lizzie’s men. Ana used her fork to shield the figure from imaginary gunfire, then stole food off Mr. Jarvis’s plate.  

“It appears Santa doesn’t know the meaning of the term ‘classified,’” Peggy said while chewing a bite of potatoes.

“She was barely royalty then, I never saw a need for all the secrecy.”

“And that, Timothy, is why the people with the mechanic that night are your superior officers.”

“Jeez, you wound me, Peg. Pulling rank on a holiday?”

“A late holiday that I’m abstaining from. Ungrateful Yanks, celebrating their escape from us evil Englanders? You all have your fun without Jacob or myself.”

“Hey,” Angie said, pointing her fork at Peggy. “Our son is half ungrateful Yank, so no. And you can’t abstain if you’re also inhaling Thanksgiving dinner, so no. Your choice, English. Grumpy English principles, or a home cooked meal?”

“I lived through rationing, darling. My principles say very clearly that if food goes on your plate, it’s not to be wasted.”

“Actually that was my plate,” Morita said. “You took it from me.”

“I’ve had an alien creature sapping half my nutrients for the better part of this year. You got another plate, didn’t you?”

Therese smiled at the back and forth despite missing the finer points of it. Dinner with this group was a bit like being with Carol and Abby when they drank too much and got to reminiscing, lots of jokes and stories about insane, amusing things Therese wasn’t part of. As with Carol and Abby, Therese didn’t mind much, enjoying the spirit of the talk if not the full contents.

At least Carol knew now what it felt like during one of her and Abby’s gabbing sessions. And at least Therese would finally be the one with a story to tell Abby when next they spoke.

Carol’s expression at having the door answered by a shirtless Gabe Jones would not be quickly forgotten, though Therese hadn’t had time to snap a picture. Carol insisted she’d looked just as ridiculous, but Therese didn’t see how she could know that given where her eyes had been glued.

Apparently Lizzie had spilled hot chocolate on Uncle Gabe’s shirt just before they arrived.

And so passed Carol’s first proper interaction with a Black man, followed quickly by her first introduction to someone of Japanese descent. The joys of living life as a rich snob, Angie would say.

They would work on widening Carol’s social circle later.

“Where’s Rose tonight?” Ana asked. “I was hoping to see her.”

“Yeah, Peg, you got your employees working Thanksgiving now?” said Dugan.

“The world must spin on even during that wretched Yank holiday,” Peggy said, serving herself more turkey, “which I’ll remind you has already passed. No, I invited her but she had plans.” Peggy looked at Carol. “You spoke to Abby?”

“I passed the invite along,” Carol promised. “She called this afternoon, said she was tired,”

“So, she’s hungover,” Angie said with a smirk, then drank from her wineglass,

“That is the most likely option, yes,” Carol said.

“Hung over what?” Lizzie asked, briefly looking up from her war games.

A beautiful woman, Therese thought, but said nothing.

“What about you, Dugan?” Steve asked. “Where’s your better half?”

“Like he could have a worse one,” Morita said.

“You’re married?” Therese asked, surprised.

“You have a Mrs. Santa?” Rindy asked. Her company of soldiers was now arranged defensively around her plate.

Dugan nodded, the false beard failing to hide his smile. “Yes ma’am.”

“Where is she?”

“At home.”

“In the North Pole?”

“In Canada. Which is not entirely different. Both have snow.”

“No thanks,” said Morita. “You lovebirds have fun freezing to death, I’m very happy to be home.”

Gabe huffed out a breath. “Fresno boy. I’m surprised you survived all those winters with us, that delicate West Coast disposition.”

“You wanna see delicate, Gabriel?” Morita asked, half-rising from his chair in a mock threat.

“Children,” Angie said. “We have guests.”

Therese watched Gabe and Morita debate the merits of California weather. When she’d asked what he did now that the war was over, Morita had cheerfully responded, “What Peggy says,” before explaining that he ran the California branch of whatever organization Peggy headed.

“You melt out there,” Dugan was saying. “Why do you think Rose came back?”

“’Cause Peg told her to,” said Morita.

“I asked, not ordered,” Peggy said. “Though personally I’d be happy never to see the place again, company notwithstanding.”

Peggy smiled at Morita’s wife and children, and Therese sensed she was missing the important parts of yet another story.

“See?” Dugan said. “Anyway. Wifey couldn’t make it out this time. Work, you know.”

“She has tickets to something fabulous, doesn’t she?” Peggy drawled.

“Such great tickets,” Dugan replied. “She sends her love, but apparently she’s not crossing the border to visit you and the little private unless you’re the one cooking.”

“Oh good, she’ll be here just in time for Jacob to be old enough for real enlistment.”

“Mommy can’t cook,” Lizzie said, making a face.

“Uh-uh.” Angie shook her head while Peggy nodded agreement. “That, my dear, is Mommy being sneaky and lazy.”

“Did you really just refer to me as lazy?”

“It’s a scam,” Angie said as if Peggy hadn’t spoken. “And I bought into it for years, I’m ashamed of myself. She plays dumber than dumb in the kitchen, but come on. She ain’t dumb, and she’s got all that proper English training. She just hates it, so she pretends.”

“And when exactly did you figure this out?” Carol asked, clearly amused.

Angie shrugged. “We were living in Howard’s old castle still, just us. I had a week of crap auditions, then I got sick from running around in the rain getting to those crap auditions. Couldn’t get out of bed to cook, thought we were going to starve. Then English came in with this giant tray of goodies and the jig was up.”

“Yes, that’s what I get for nursing my poor, dear darling back to health,” Peggy said. “My secrets exploited.”

“Mommy can cook up a storm, Lizzie.” Angie sat forward in her chair as she addressed her daughter. “You just gotta not give her a choice. So this year for Christmas—”

“Shut up, Angie,” Peggy said.

“—this year for Christmas, you tell Santa that you want Mommy to make all our favorites for dinner.”

“What do you say, Lizzie?” Dugan asked, adjusting his beard. “You want Mommy to cook for Christmas?”

“No, I want a doggie.”

“You just got a brother,” Steve pointed out, “now you want a dog?”

“ _You_ got James,” Lizzie replied. “You made him for you, you didn’t ask me. I would’ve asked for a doggie. Doggies are better than people.”

“Jake,” Steve said. “Your brother’s name is Jake.”

“Fine. Doggies are still better than people anyway.”

Gabe grinned. “Is there a flaw there, is she actually wrong? Because I’m not sure she’s wrong.”

“She can keep the dog at your place then,” said Peggy.

There was more small talk, more passing of plates. Angie asked the Morita children how they liked school in California.

“They change the Pledge there too?” Dugan asked.

“You know damn well they did, you dope,” Steve said.

“Yeah, because that’ll have the godless Commies shaking in their boots,” said Morita.

Steve raised his drink and took a sip. “Pledge has been changed before, what’s wrong with bringing God into it?”

Dugan made a dismissive gesture. “Nothing wrong exactly, just don’t see the point. Of all the things we can do to fight the Red Menace,” he rolled his eyes, “will something like that really matter?”

Steve shrugged. “We’ll have to see, I guess.”

“Personally, I’ve been uneasy about this Pledge with or without God,” said Ana, continuing when gazes shifted to her. “We didn’t have anything like it in my country. Forcing children from a young age to swear fealty to their country, doesn’t anyone find that a bit unsettling?”

“Maybe,” said Carol. “But is it really any more unsettling than the respect you show when bowing to the Queen?” she asked, nodding to Peggy.

“Oh, Peggy was bowing like hell during that tune-up,” said Dugan.

“Shut it, Saint Nick,” Peggy replied.

Angie made a vague gesture, said that the whole thing might be a little off, then said something about Mussolini.

“Oh come on,” said Dugan. “That’s a little much, don’t you think?”

Gabe bit into a dinner roll. “Don’t know. Commies are brainwashing their kids to be mindless drones, so says Dwight. What are we doing? And you’re the one who said it was messed up in the first place.”

“I said I didn’t see how adding a few words to a saying was going to win us a war, didn’t say a thing about brainwashing.”

“I agree,” said Amy, who’d been mostly quiet through dinner and seemed, like Therese, to prefer listening much of the time. “It’s not just a saying; it gives them a sense of their place in the world. Of pride.”

“Does it?” Gabe asked. He looked at Rindy. “Hey kiddo, you know the Pledge of Allegiance?”

Rindy did, and she recited it for him when he asked, never stumbled on a word.

Gabe smiled at her. “Smart girl. You know what it is?”

Rindy frowned. “Huh?”

“What it is. What it means. You know why you say it?”

Rindy looked at Lizzie, across at the Morita children. Getting no help, she took a sloppy forkful of corn, spilling some on the table. “It’s the thing we say before spelling.”

“Yeah. And do you know why?”

Rindy shrugged. “Because it comes before spelling.”

Gabe called Rindy smart again and thanked her. Then he said, “Do they really get a sense of pride when they don’t even know what they’re saying?”

“Doesn’t make it brainwashing,” said Dugan. “You’d know brainwashing, but you were too busy for the Russia mission in ’46.”

“I was busy getting shot at.”

“So were we, but we were doing it in Russia.”

“Timothy,” Peggy said.

Dugan waved her off. “I know, I know, but you saw it, Peg, what they’re doing. You want to talk indoctrination, we got nothing on the Russians.”

“Are Russians and Commies the same thing?” Jim and Amy’s son asked. “Are they the bad guys Daddy and Aunt Peggy fight?”

Someone’s fork clattered a bit too loud, causing Therese to look in Steve’s direction. He was sitting a bit more stiffly than before, she thought.

“All right, that’s enough,” Peggy said. “I have to listen to bloody politics all day at work, I need a break.”

“Damn right,” said Angie. “Fancy made pies for dessert. Fancy, you’re a godsend.”

“A pleasure as always, Miss Martinelli,” said Jarvis.

There was a small commotion as the children grew excited for sweets and Angie tried to figure out which of the adults were hungry enough for another course. Lizzie was nearly bouncing in her chair.

Angie frowned, leaning over to look at Lizzie’s plate. The dish Carol had made—casserole from a recipe she’d never tried before—had gone over rather well. But not with Lizzie. “Finish your dinner first.”

“I don’t want it, it’s yucky.”

“Hey,” Steve said. “You haven’t even tried it.”

“Because it’s yucky.”

“You’re being rude, Lizzie,” Steve said, voice hardening a little. “Aunt Carol made that for you, the least you can do is try it.”

Carol told him softly that the casserole might be utterly disgusting, she’d only even learned of it last week, but Steve smiled a thin smile and told her it was delicious.

“Then have James eat mine,” Lizzie pouted. “You don’t make James eat yucky stuff.”

“ _Jake_ can’t eat like we do yet,” Steve said, emphasizing the name. “Now try your casserole and behave, and maybe we’ll talk about dessert.”

“Give it to James,” Lizzie persisted. “Everyone comes to see him and give him stuff anyway, give him the yucky casserole.”

“They came to see you too, and you’re being rude and disrespectful. And I’m not telling you again about your brother.”

“You will too. James, James, James, _James_ , that’s all you ever talk about!”

Therese watched Steve’s face darken with each repetition of the name that wasn’t his son’s. The spoon he held seemed in danger of bending.

“Go to your room,” Steve said with an edge Therese hadn’t heard before, at least around Lizzie.

“But—”

“Go. You call your brother Jake or Jacob, I don’t care which, and you get upstairs and stay there until you can behave around our guests. Move,” Steve said when Lizzie didn’t.

Lizzie glared, lip quivering. Squirming out of her chair, she grabbed Rindy’s arm and nearly pulled the older girl to the ground. It might’ve been funny in other circumstances.

“You, not Rindy,” Steve said. “Rindy’s not acting like a spoiled brat, so Rindy’s not being punished.”

Shaking now, Lizzie shot a last glare at Steve and made a rough grab for her toy figures, snatching them up in small hands. Several fell to the floor. Only then did Lizzie dash out of the room. They heard her feet on the stairs and the slamming of a door. Jacob’s cries followed.

“Steve,” Peggy said, barely audible.

Steve let out a breath. Peggy leaned in close and said something Therese couldn’t hear even from a few seats away. Then Steve pushed back from the table, stood.

“Leave the dishes, I’ll get them later.”

He left the room, offering nothing else.

Peggy sighed. “I did say this was a bloody rubbish holiday. Who wants pie?”

* * *

 “Am I bothering you? Mommy says I can’t bother you when you’re busy with Jake.”

Peggy smiled at Rindy’s quiet, serious tone, holding Jacob secure against her shoulder. “You’re not bothering me, sweetheart.”

Peggy paced slow circles around the nursery, nearly done calming Jacob after he’d been startled awake. She felt Rindy watching her from where she stood near the crib, saw a strained, thoughtful expression. Carol said Rindy looked like her father when she was thinking too hard, wrestling something. Peggy waited.

“Uncle Steve yelled at Lizzie.”

“He did, yes.”

“They’re mad now.”

“Everyone gets mad sometimes. They’ll be alright.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know,” Peggy teased. “They’ll take a breath and cool down a bit, they’ll apologize, and everything will be fine.”

Rindy frowned. “Is that how it always works?”

“When you love each other, yes.”

Peggy waited again, watching Rindy puzzle out her thoughts. The next one she expressed wasn’t what Peggy expected.

“The man with the beard isn’t the real Santa.”

Peggy chuckled at the non-question, kissing Jacob’s head. “He’s a proxy.”

“What?”

“He works for Santa, passes messages along. ”

“Oh. He didn’t ask what I wanted for Christmas. He asked Lizzie but not me.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we? What would you like for Christmas, Rindy?”

“I want what Lizzie has, I want my family to be like here.”

“How do you mean?”

“Mommy says there’s not enough room for her and Daddy to be in the same place at the same time. But you have enough room for you and Aunt Angie and Uncle Steve and Lizzie, and Jacob now too. Lizzie gets to eat with everybody instead of two Thanksgivings and two Christmases, and she doesn’t have to pack different toys for different places and always go home too early, and leave the toy she wanted at the other place.”

“Rindy—”

“I want Santa to make Mommy and Daddy and Aunt Therese like you. He can make them make enough room for each other, and make Mommy and Daddy say sorry and not be mad all the time, and we can all be together like here. Can I go tell that to the man with the beard, or do I have to give him a letter for it to work?”

Peggy closed her eyes. She couldn’t have just wanted a set of toy army men, could she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ‘Under God’ bit was added to the US Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.
> 
> Campbell’s green bean casserole recipe was first showcased in the ’55 edition of the Associated Press


	3. Chapter 3

Sighing, Peggy breathed in Jacob’s scent, his tiny chest rising and falling evenly against hers. Rindy watched her with wide, hopeful eyes.

Shite.

She settled Jacob back in his crib, buying herself time in the process. Fussing unnecessarily with his blanket, Peggy wondered if this time of sleeplessness, wailing and dirty diapers wasn’t the easy bit. “Sweet boy,” she murmured.

Sweet in that as long as she fed him, clothed him and kept him dry, he seemed content. The expectations were rather low. It was only when they started talking and back-talking and wanting impossible answers that things turned difficult.

Taking a breath and pulling a smile, Peggy turned from the crib to face Rindy properly, holding out her hand. “Come on then. Let’s go somewhere we don’t have to whisper.”

She led Rindy down the hall. The gathering downstairs continued, voices filtering up. She didn’t hear Steve and hadn’t expected to.

They went to the upstairs sitting room, which Steve had pitched as Angie’s workspace when they bought the house. He envisioned bookshelves filled with scripts and tomes on the craft of acting, walls painted in Angie’s favorite colors Angie had snorted and thanked him for the thought, but declared that she didn’t do offices. As it was, her voice was likely to be heard in any room at any time, reading and perfecting her lines. Scripts were marked, underlined and smudged with Lizzie’s fingerprints. Angie read them anywhere and left them everywhere, soothing Jacob with Shakespeare monologues as she paced the house.

So, Angie did not do offices.

They sat on the sofa. The backs of Rindy’s legs hit restlessly against it. .

“Can I go tell what I want,” she pressed, “or do I have to write it down for it to count?”

“It counts already,” Peggy said. “But Rindy, Santa might not be able to help with this wish.”

“But he’s magic.”

“He is, but even magic has rules. Like Cinderella’s carriage turning back to a pumpkin at midnight, or a genie only granting three wishes.”

“But Santa’s different from a genie, and I don’t need three wishes, just one.”

Peggy sat forward on the sofa. “I know. But sometimes getting one person to do what we’d like them to do is very hard, even with magic, let alone three.”

“Well…well you can do it then, if Santa can’t. Isn’t that what you do already? Di…dipto…”

“Diplomacy,” Peggy said. She’d given the children a basic explanation, that it was her job to show people how to get along with each other even when they didn’t want to. Talked herself right into that trap, hadn’t she? “Yes, that is what I do already.”

“Well?”

Rindy was looking at her expectantly, nearly grinning at having found the solution for Peggy. “Darling, it’s not that simple.”

“But, but it’s your job and everyone says you’re the best at your job.”

Peggy sighed. She couldn’t very well explain the difference between world peace negotiations and two people with more than ten years of hurt and anger between them. Undoubtedly, she preferred the former. “I’m going to tell you something very important, Rindy, and very secret. You’re not meant to know until you’re much older, but I’m going to tell you now. Alright?”

Rindy nodded. Her legs stilled, no longer hitting the couch.

She was rapt, paying full attention. Peggy nodded to herself, satisfied. “Grownups,” she said in a low, confidential tone, “don’t know everything.”

“I know that,” Rindy said, disappointment clear on her face. “Mommy doesn’t know how to work Aunt Therese’s camera good and Aunt Therese doesn’t like driving when it’s dark, and Daddy can’t cook anything, he needs a helper.”

Servant, he needed a servant, probably for far too many things. “You know, hmm? Well, adults won’t like that very much. They think it’s a secret and try to keep it as long as they can.”

“But you told me,” Rindy pointed out, frown lines marring her small forehead.

“I did. I knew it too at your age, and it got me in lots and lots of trouble.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“No, darling, no.  You’re not in trouble, and I’m not telling you to get you in trouble.”

“Then how come?”

“So you’ll understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That grownups are, they’re just doing their best. That’s what you do in school, right, when you’re learning something new that doesn’t quite make sense?”

“Yes,” Rindy said, drawing the word out a bit and ducking her eyes. She turned as red as Therese did when Angie tried to explain sex with multiple partners.

Peggy raised an eyebrow.

Rindy shifted, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Sometimes in math, I read off Sarah Kimble’s paper. “ She raised her voice again. “But Sarah knows I do it and she reads off mine for spelling.”

“I see. Is Sarah good at math?”

“She’s the best in class.”

“Are you good at spelling?”

“I’m the best at that.”

“Good girl.” If she was going to cheat, at least she had the sense to pick an intelligent co-conspirator. “But you still have to try your best to learn on your own, yes?” Peggy asked, a hint of sternness in her voice.

“Yes, Aunt Peggy.”

“Yes. It’s good to have friends you can rely on, but they may not always be there for you. What if Sarah gets sick during the next test, or you’re placed in different classes next year?”

Rindy stared at her lap and went back to kicking the sofa.

“It’s hard to know the answers sometimes, and grownups don’t always know them. Steve and Angie and I, we had to work a long time at figuring out how to live like this, make room for each other.”

“But you did it,” Rindy said, somewhere between stubborn and pouty.

“We did, but it was hard and it took a long time, and not everyone can. Your mother might never learn to work Therese’s camera as well as you can, and your father might never be able to cook. You’ll still love them, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Rindy said, drawing the word out again. When she looked up, her eyes were glassy. “But I really, really want them to learn this, this is important.”

“I know, I know it is.” Peggy took Rindy’s small hand in hers and squeezed. “But we don’t always get our families exactly how we want. We rarely do, actually. What you must try to remember is that your parents love you, even if they can’t do it at the same time.”

“I know.”

The tone of it amused Peggy, situation aside. It was heavy and long-suffering, like she’d heard it too much. “Do you?”

“Yes. Mommy says Daddy loves me and Daddy says Mommy loves me.” Rindy paused. “Grandma doesn’t. Grandma says if Mommy really loved me she wouldn’t have gone away. Grandma says Mommy loves Aunt Therese more than me.”

Peggy let go of Rindy’s hand to keep from crushing it. “That’s what your grandmother says?”

Rindy shrugged. “She says it to Daddy and Grandpa. Daddy says to talk quiet but she’s not very good at that.”

“I see. And what do you think, do you think that’s true?”

Rindy shook her head. “No.” The frown lines deepened. “But why would Grandma say it otherwise?”

“Because grownups don’t know everything.”

“Even really old grownups like Grandma and Grandpa?”

Especially them. “Yes. Your mother loves you very, very much.”

Peggy thought of the children in Russia and the conversation about brainwashing and the time Carol drunkenly asked her if she could have someone killed,

“But if they all love me, Mommy and Daddy and Aunt Therese, why can’t they love each other like here, so we can be together?”

“It’s not that simple, Rindy. I know you’d like it to be, I know others say it is, but it’s not.”

Peggy watched Rindy’s face fall, watched her blink back tears. She skipped any hollow consolations about the benefits of having two birthdays and Christmases, about getting to go different places with each parent. They meant nothing.

“So I won’t ever get what Lizzie has?”

Peggy took a breath. She was too hormonal for that soft, dejected tone. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” she said, a compromise between false hope and breaking a child’s heart. “Things change, people change as they learn more, but it can take time. I just, I’m not sure it will happen by Christmas.”

Rindy nodded and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Peggy scooted over, folding Rindy into her arms. “Your parents are doing the best they can, that’s all any of us can do.” If it was a slight lie, she’d told bigger ones for worse causes. “They love you very much. And maybe they’ll sort things out someday, sort them out better. But if they don’t,” Peggy waited, made sure she had Rindy’s gaze, “if they don’t, Rindy, that’s their responsibility, not yours. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything you do or don’t do, it’s not your fault. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah,” Rindy said quietly.

Peggy doubted it, at least for now, but hopefully the words would linger. “Good girl. Now. I know you want your father here too, but you’ve got your mother, and Therese, and Lizzie’s uncles downstairs. They’re loud and rowdy and you must never repeat a single word they say, but they’re also fun, and make good tackle dummies. And Mrs. Jarvis. Who loves children by the way, and always keeps an absurd amount of sweets on hand. I’m sure you could impress her with your spelling skills and get a little reward.”

All right, so she _was_ falling back on hollow consolations. A bit. She’d used cheaper tactics for worse causes. At least Rindy was smiling again.

Not for the first time, she considered locking herself in a room with Carol and Harge until a suitable agreement could be reached. Perhaps she would finally do it, when she was a bit less post-partum.

Or perhaps she wouldn’t wait so long after all. Speaking to Mr. Aird about children and hormones while showing off one of Howard’s latest weapons designs might be just the ticket.

* * *

 The gravel beneath her feet crunched in the cool dusk air as Therese hurried across the drive, towards the garage. Steve kept swearing he was going to turn the drive into proper concrete, but she was sure he had fifty other projects he'd procrastinate on first.

The door to his 'garage' - 'Workshop', Steve called it, 'fortress of solitude' claimed Angie - wasn't locked, but still took a little strength from her to open.

 "Hey," she said quietly, shutting the door behind her with a solid thunk that echoed slightly off the cement walls.

For a garage it didn't really have much to do with vehicles. Parked safely to one side was Steve's precious motorcycle, but other than that the space wasn't really used for car storage. It was filled mainly with projects in process. Wood, metal, paint, charcoal, and what Therese was sure might be the world’s biggest weights littered the room in a controlled chaos, with lights flickering gently overhead.

The only areas not covered in projects were the counter tops, the worn couch Steve sat on, and the little coffee table that his feet were propped up on. While Therese had slipped on her winter coat to combat the chilled December air, Steve remained in the light button-down worn in the warm house. His sleeves were rolled up. Therese saw no sign of goosebumps on his skin.

"Hey," Steve replied without looking at her. Instead his gaze was focused down on some comic book opened on his lap. There was an ashtray on the table next to it and a cigarette between his lips.

"More reliving of the glory days?" Therese guessed, peering down at the brazen cartoon visage of the beloved Captain and his boy wonder companion.

“These were not the glory days,” Steve said, exhaling smoke. “These were, no days I ever lived. Entertaining though.”

"You mean Betty Carver isn't an amazing nurse and seamstress?" Therese mimed shock and sat down next to Steve, feet tucked neatly under her so she could lean against him, see the page herself. He was also something of a living heater, and that was hardly unwelcome.

"Smartass," Steve gave a little smile that seemed more full of pain than amusement. "For starters yes, Betty Carver is a hero. Dugan was not a circus strongman - he's just strong -, we weren't as male centered as it shows, and Bucky was not a child mascot.”

“What does that even mean, a mascot on an Army base?”

“Exactly.” Steve shook his head. He flipped the page, eyeing a picture of Betty Carver, complete with blonde curls and sewing kit. “Amazing how they mashed two people into one and got both so wrong.”

Therese frowned, looked at him. “Two?”

Steve hummed.

“Peggy, obviously, but who else?”

“Uh-uh. Classified. You’d have to get me drunk.”

“You can’t get drunk.”

“Nope.”

She smacked his arm lightly, knew he wouldn’t feel anything harder anyway. “What about that?” she asked, nodding at the cigarette. “Can that even do anything for you?”

“Not really. Body filters it out too fast. But I had asthma most of my life, still nice being able to smoke them now.”

He offered her one and she nodded, let him light it for her. They were silent a few moments before Steve spoke again.

“Party’s still going full swing, huh?”

Therese nodded. The departure of one of the hosts hadn’t stalled things for very long. “Ana’s sneaking Rindy chocolates while Angie distracts Carol.”

Steve’s smile this time was slightly more genuine.

“I think Rindy’s saving some of the chocolates for Lizzie,” Therese said carefully.

Steve stubbed out his cigarette, ran a hand through his hair. “Rindy’s a good girl.”

“Lizzie too,” Therese said, still careful. She’d seen him go upstairs not long ago, return a short while later looking tired and dejected. Then he’d slipped out the back.

“Lizzie’s a monster,” Steve said on a chuckle. “She couldn’t be anything else, coming from Angie and I. But she’s a good girl.”

The sadness in the last words was obvious. “She adores you.”

He scoffed. “Don’t let her hear you say that, whatever you do.”

“She does,” Therese insisted. “She’s just, not used to sharing you yet.”

Steve smiled a thin smile and lit another cigarette.

“Was it really that bad?”

“You ever read _Gulliver’s Travels_?”

“Sure, once or twice, as a kid.”

“When I went up there, every one of those little army men were facing the doorway and pointing their guns at me.”

Therese chuckled and winced simultaneously. She certainly hadn’t imagined their gift being used for that purpose. “Sorry.”

He waved her off. “Don’t be. First time Peggy got really cross with me, she shot four bullets at a prototype shield I was holding, just hoped it would work. Or hoped it wouldn’t, you’d have to ask her.”

“Huh.”

They were quiet again for a bit, smoking and listening to the slight wind outside. Then Steve stood up, setting the comic aside on the couch without losing the page. Therese watched him move to a desk and chair in the corner of the room. Both were old and sturdy, built for function, not style. There were extra lamps on the desk, the place where Steve usually did his drawings. He’d sketched some pictures based on her photos, surprisingly bashful when he showed them to her. She’d learned simple artist’s techniques from him and taught those to Rindy, making herself look quite impressive in the process.

He took something from the desk and returned. Only then did Therese recognize the pile of photos he fanned out on the coffee table. Hers, but his now, the ones of Jacob and the family.

“These are really good, you know,” he told her.

Therese shrugged. “Good subjects, hard to get wrong.”

“I mean it. You’re great at this. You’ll only get better.”

“So says the great Captain America.”

“So says the not so great Steve Rogers.” Steve sat forward. The pictures and the comic were next to each other on the table. He tapped a panel in the latter, showing a boy in a garish costume and a domino mask. “This was my fault, you know.”

“What was?”

“Bucky getting turned into a twelve-year-old. This was USO days, before I was doing anything real. Guys in charge of these things said they needed a kid, someone other kids could relate to. Someone besides me telling them to collect stamps and scrap metal. I suggested Bucky, didn’t think they’d actually run with it.”

“Why? Why do that to him?”

“He was my best friend,” Steve said with a shrug. “Who’d made it very clear that I had no business in that war and would never get anywhere near it. Then there I was, the face of it. I wanted to see how ticked he’d get at also being the face of it. A twelve-year-old face. With a twelve-year-old mouth that said things like ‘golly’ and ‘gee whiz’ and ‘wahoo.’”

“You were being horrible.”

“I was. Completely. His reaction was worth it though. And he would’ve done the same to me.”

Therese smiled, thought back to what she knew, what everyone knew. The Cap exhibit seemed to spring up mere days after his death. Most everyone in New York must’ve gone there at least once. “But you went through Nazi-occupied Austria on your own to rescue him.”

“Not on my own. Peg and Howard invited themselves, lucky for me. Anyway, I couldn’t rub one of these books in Buck’s face if he was dead.” Steve tapped the comic, his voice growing quieter. “He would’ve done the same for me.”

Therese watched the small changes in his face, the play of emotion. She thought of the soldiers inside, telling stories of men she’d never met. They hadn’t told stories about James Buchanan Barnes, at least not in her presence.

James Buchanan Barnes, the boy in the comic.

The baby in the pictures who should’ve been James Steven Rogers.

“Why did you change his name?” Therese asked, finally voicing the question that had pulled at the edge of her mind ever since she first heard that edge in Steve’s voice whenever he corrected Lizzie.

Steve’s answer was a question. “You know how they say that pictures don’t lie? You think that’s true?”

He was looking at a photo of Jacob as he asked, Jacob in Peggy’s arms, Angie at her side, beaming at them both. Therese studied the same picture. The love was obvious, the pride. There were no lies in this picture. Then Therese thought of the few stray images she’d seen of Carol with Harge, later with Rindy too. Carol was beautiful, always, and her smile was convincing enough, but it cracked at the edges, didn’t reach the eyes. Didn’t create the tiny wrinkles of a real smile that Carol liked to complain about. The family looked gorgeous and perfect, just as perfect as Steve’s, in some ways, but knowing the truth made it possible to see the lie.

“Depends on the picture,” Therese said. “When and how it’s taken, who’s taking it.”

Steve nodded. “When I came out of the ice….so many pictures. Over two years, closer to three, I missed all of it. Pictures of VE Day, everyone going home…everything. I lived off old newspapers. And you know what else they all had pictures of? Me. Us. News photos, the ones they plastered all over those exhibits, of me and the guys. Of Bucky.”

Therese said nothing about going to those exhibits herself. He wouldn’t be angry, she knew, but something in his voice kept her quiet.

“The papers, the museums, the books.” He chuckled. “There are history books that still say I’m dead. And all of it just, just condenses everything down to a few paragraphs, a few pages at most. Whole lives down to a couple pictures, a few sentences.”

Again, Therese said nothing. He was her friend and he made her feel comfortable and safe, and there was no way on Earth that she’d ever be able to understand this part of him. She’d spent much of her life feeling invisible and not particularly minding most of the time. He was a living, breathing, icon, seen by everyone.

“I actually went to the exhibits, when I first got back,” Steve said. “Trying to, make sense of it, I guess.”

“It?”

“My life. If I had it there in black and white, had some pictures to go with, thought I could make sense of it.”

“Did it work?”

“Not at all, no.”

He said this on a laugh so Therese laughed too. She didn’t find it funny.

“No matter where you go or what book you look at, what newsreel you watch, it’s the same. Lives, people, summed up in a few words, a few seconds. Bucky, he usually got more than Dugan or Gabe. Few more sentences so they could go on about how we were friends our whole lives, how Bucky saved my ass from the bullies. How he followed me into battle and died doing it.”

Steve had picked up another cigarette, which he was crushing instead of smoking. He seemed unaware of this and the mess threatened to spill onto the comic, the photos. Therese touched his forearm, squeezed lightly.

He blinked and smiled at her, apologetic. The wasted cigarette went into the ashtray. “All that was true,” he said as if nothing had happened. “He was my best friend, the only one I had most days, and he was a good man. And he was also an asshole. He could be pushy and stubborn, could think he knew what was best for me better than I did.”

“Did he?” Therese asked, couldn’t help it.

“Sometimes. Sometimes not. We both did stupid things that no history book is ever going to talk about. Sometimes his were more stupid than mine. He did things that didn’t make sense to me, that never will.”

Steve turned his face away from her for half a second too long. Therese was about to duck her eyes when he started talking again.

“He was more than history will ever give him credit for. And less. The guy in those pictures, sometimes I think he’s just as fake as this kid.” He pointed at the magazine, the boy in the domino mask fighting a Nazi squadron and grinning the whole time. “They always end the same though, the articles, the books. It’s always his death date. That he died, fighting with me. That’s what he’ll be known for. Cap’s best friend, the one Commando he couldn’t save, who didn’t survive the war.”

“Steve…”

“I’m not putting that on Jake. He’ll be in enough shadows already, with who his parents are. James Steven Rogers, that’s just me putting Steve and Buck together again, making up for something. That’s all anyone will ever see. He’d be a little boy born with ghosts following him around his entire life. It’s not fair.”

 “Jacob Michael?” Therese asked, making the name a question.

“Jacob’s a good name that I liked. Michael is Peggy’s brother.”

“Oh. Lizzie’s never mentioned him.” Lizzie had many, many relatives on the Martinelli side and Therese had heard far too much about all of them to keep any of it straight.

“She never knew him. Lost in the war before Buck or I ever enlisted.”

“Oh,” Therese repeated. She wondered how that counted as avoiding ghosts, swapping one dead man’s name for another, but it must be different, being Cap or a Commando than being any other soldier, alive or dead.

Steve was quiet again. Therese studied the pictures with him. There was the one Carol had liked, Lizzie and Rindy with Steve and the baby. “He’s beyond lucky. No matter what his name is, he and Lizzie are both so lucky to have you.”

Steve smiled and thanked her, sat back on the couch.

Therese hated these moments, wanting to offer comfort and feeling completely inadequate. “Anyway, a name, that’s not the most important thing here, not even close.”

“No?”

“No. The important thing is, who the hell else is Betty Carver?”

Steve laughed, a full one this time that shook his whole frame. “Oh God, don’t.”

“Because if everyone else's name stayed the same - even if age didn't – then—”

“Please, please don't.” Steve wrapped his arm around her shoulders, "That's a whole dark can of worms that involves a blonde kicking my ass, one pissed off Brit, and a sewing machine that got taken to tiny pieces and left in my boots.”

* * *

 “You can stay, you know. We have the room.”

Carol shook her head, smiled at Angie’s offer. “No, no, you’re plenty full as is, and we should’ve gotten this one to bed an hour ago.”

Therese looked down at Rindy. The child was dragging her feet and gripping Therese’s hand as Steve and Angie walked them out. Peggy had hugged everyone, but stayed inside to “mind the apes.”

“Stayover,” Lizzie mumbled into Steve’s shoulder. She was wrapped in a blanket while Steve remained coatless. His second attempt at peacemaking had apparently gone better. Lizzie clung sleepily in his arms and hadn’t mentioned the spat at the table since she came downstairs on his shoulders.

“Not tonight, sweetheart,” Carol said. “Rindy’s got to be ready for her daddy tomorrow.”

Rindy’s grip tightened unexpectedly in Therese’s. Looking down, Therese saw Rindy eyeing Steve and Lizzie with something she couldn’t identify, something she hadn’t seen in the child’s gaze before.

“Carry me?” Rindy said suddenly, half request, half grumpy demand.

“You’re a big girl and perfectly capable of walking,” Carol said.

“Lizzie gets carried.”

“Lizzie’s smaller,” Carol said.

“Am not,” Lizzie mumbled, nestling further into Steve.

“Carry me,” Rindy said again. Eyes half closed, she stopped walking, planting herself in the driveway.

“Rindy,” Carol sighed, the start of a warning.

“Not you, Aunt ‘Rhese.”

The shortened, sleep-filled version of her name warmed something in Therese. “Carol, it’s fine. Really.”

At first she’d tried so hard never to question Carol’s actions with Rindy, never to interfere. She still tried, but things had changed, it’d been years, and Rindy had wrapped Therese well and truly around her little finger.

“Are you sure?” Carol asked.

“It’s fine,” Therese repeated, already stooping to take Rindy in her arms. Heavier than she’d been the first time Therese did this, but the distance was short enough. Rindy’s arms and legs immediately wrapped around her. Therese could smell the shampoo Carol used when bathing her, pushing away a memory of the first time she’d taken over and got it in Rindy’s eyes and panicked worse than Rindy.

“See, kid?” Angie asked, adjusting the blanket over Lizzie as they resumed the walk down the drive. “This is what happens when you use everyone as monkey bars, your friends get ideas and everyone knows we’re bad parents.”

Lizzie muttered something that might’ve been “Sorry, Mama,” obviously not sorry and having no idea what she was falsely apologizing for.

“Well,” Carol said, “you’re doing the heavy lifting so I’ll drive.”

Therese looked at her in surprise over Rindy’s head. “You drove over.”

“I’m aware.”

“It’s my turn.”

“I’m aware. But you don’t like driving at night, and I haven’t had anything since the glass at dinner. I’m fine.”

“Are you—”

Angie rolled her eyes and interrupted, confirmed that Carol hadn’t had anything and clearly Carol was sure. Angie said the two of them disgusted her, a bright smile on her face.

There were quiet goodbyes at the car. Steve’s smile was warm as he kissed Therese’s forehead, brief and barely there. Therese felt Carol’s eyes on her as she worked on getting Rindy settled.

Angie coughed loudly and might’ve said something about rabies, which made no sense whatsoever. Carol called her an imbecile.

Carol was on the driver’s side, exchanging final words with Steve and Angie. Therese was by the passenger door on the other side, working on getting Rindy to sit up. Deeming it a lost cause, Therese let her lay down across the seat. Shrugging out of her jacket, she covered Rindy with it. She’d have Carol turn up the heater on the way home.

“Goodnight, Rindy,” she whispered,, amused as she finished tucking Rindy into the makeshift bed.

“Night, Mama,” Rindy mumbled, pulling Therese’s coat tighter around her.

Therese froze in a way that had nothing to do with early December nights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While things in this series are planned out to a certain extent, I'm always anxious to check out prompts, or just to hear from you guys. Hit me up on Tumblr if you're so inclined.
> 
> http://cblgblog.tumblr.com/


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of book canon stuff here regarding Therese and Richard's background. Next chapter will be it for this installment.

“I can hear you thinking.”

Carol’s voice had Therese rolling over in bed, squinting through the dark at Carol. “Hmm?”

“For someone who can be so exceedingly quiet, you think exceedingly loudly.”

“I’m sorry.”

The mattress shifted a bit with Carol’s movements. “Don’t be. Penny for them?”

“Hmm?”

“The very loud thoughts that are keeping us both awake.”

Carol’s voice held warmth and humor. Therese sighed anyway. “I’m sorry.”

There was silence for a moment. The bed shifted again and then the room was bathed in low light. Carol had switched on the bedside lamp. “Don’t be,” Carol said again, the worry clear on her face. “Therese?”

“It’s nothing,” said Therese, not sure what her feelings were let alone how to explain them.

“No?” Carol sat up on an elbow, studying her. “I thought we had a good time tonight?”

“We did,” Therese said quickly.

“I offered to drive so you could relax on the way home. You haven’t been very relaxed.”

She was about to say again that it was nothing. Didn’t know why she was about to do that. It was absurd, wanting even now after all this time to ask Carol things, to know her, and not being able to reciprocate.

It was foolish and unfair to both of them, To all of them.

“It’s Rindy,” Therese said.

“What about her?”

Carol’s worry mounted instantly, Therese could tell. She wished she were better at this. “She’s fine,” Therese promised, scooting closer to Carol, taking her hand. “She’s absolutely fine, she just, she surprised me, that’s all.”

Carol visibly relaxed, though she still watched Therese intently. “Surprised you?” Carol asked, drawing light circles on Therese’s palm.

Therese nodded, gripped Carol’s hand tighter. “She, while I was putting her in the car…she called me Mama.”

It was quiet again. Therese imagined she could hear Rindy breathing in the room down the hall, sleeping far better than either of them.

“Carol?” Therese said after long seconds had passed and Carol’s expression remained unreadable.

“She called you Mama?” Carol asked softly. Her thumb had stopped drawing those gentle circles.

Therese nodded again, an odd feeling of guilt pressing in on her. “She did. I was tucking her in the back and I said goodnight to her. I thought she was already asleep but she said goodnight back. She said…that.”

“Huh,” Carol said. “What did she say then?”

“Nothing. She rolled over and went to sleep.”

Carol huffed out a breath. “I suppose she had to get some things from her father.”

“Carol!” Therese said on a shocked laugh, using her free hand to smack Carol’s arm.

But Carol caught her wrist, squeezed lightly. “Uh-uh, Miss Belivet. No roughhousing this late at night. Not unless you plan to follow through.”

Therese laughed and feigned indignation, made half an effort to free her hands. Carol held tight, kissing first one then the other.

The worst of the tension broken, Therese relaxed and looked into Carol’s eyes. “I thought I might’ve misheard her, but—”

Carol shook her head. “Hard to mistake ‘Aunt ‘Rhese’ for ‘Mama.’”

Therese thought so too, after she’d thought on it further. “She was sleepy, she could’ve been talking to you.”

Carol shook her head. “She was sleepy, but she asked specifically for you to carry her. I doubt she forgot who she was with that quickly. Anyway, she’s never called me that.”

“Well, well Lizzie said something to Angie a few seconds earlier, I think. She might’ve heard it and…” And what? Therese didn’t know.

Carol nodded this time, cupped Therese’s face. “Did she upset you?”

“No, I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it.”

“No, of course you weren’t. Are you alright?”

“Are you?” Therese asked before she could stop herself.

Carol frowned. “Me?”

“Yes. I mean….mother, it’s a special word. Any version of it. It’s, I don’t want to take…”

Carol moved suddenly, pulled Therese into her arms. “Sweetheart, no.” She kissed Therese’s cheek, her forehead. “Always so worried about taking from me.” Carol tightened her hold. “Rindy’s never used that word with me, not that iteration. And even if she had, how would her blurting it to you unexpectedly be your fault?”

“I don’t know,” Therese said hugging Carol back, feeling reassured and foolish at the same time. “I just, I wasn’t expecting it and I don’t know what it meant, and I didn’t want you angry.”

Carol pulled back far enough to kiss her, soft and warm. “I’m not angry,” Carol promised after they separated. “I’m sorry if she upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” Therese insisted. “I’m, confused, I guess.”

“Mmm.” Carol pushed a strand of hair back from Therese’s eyes. “You’re very loud when you’re confused.”

Therese smiled. “Sorry.”

“Shhh.” Pushing lightly on Therese’s shoulder, Carol eased her down against the pillows. “I’ll talk to her.”

Therese sighed as Carol turned off the bedside lamp before leaning down, settling part of her weight over her. She hadn’t gone terribly far with Richard, but she had found herself pinned between him and the arm of a couch, or a car door. His bulk pressed against her always felt mildly suffocating. Carol’s weight was a blanket, covering her, grounding her. “What if she doesn’t remember saying it?”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“What if she thinks I’m angry? Don’t let her think I’m angry, I—”

“Therese.” Carol kissed her neck. “Darling.”

Carol’s lips were on hers again.

“Angel.”

Carol’s legs intertwined with hers, her knee pushing up, drawing a gasp from Therese.

“I will talk to her,” Carol said, voice a low murmur in the dark. “I will even talk to her before she has a chance to barge in here and use our ribs as trampolines.”

Therese laughed. Rindy was learning far too much from Lizzie, and Lizzie’s interactions with her near-indestructible father.

“I will talk to her,” Carol repeated, catching Therese’s bottom lip between her teeth, sucking briefly and gently as she moved her knee, “and everything will be fine. Will you go to sleep now?”

“With you like this? No, definitely not.”

“Would you like me to stop?”

“What happened to not making promises you aren’t going to follow through on?”

Chuckling low in the dark, Carol kissed her, fingers trailing over the buttons of Therese’s pajama top. “Fair point.”

* * *

 Practically speaking, Carol’s method of getting Therese to sleep wasn’t the best. It’d been exceedingly pleasurable and certainly it’d tired them both out, but now there was daylight and Carol was more tired than she wanted to be.

Still, no regrets. She could never regret that.

Even if the tiny ball of energy sitting on her counter had her feeling every hour of rest she’d missed last night.

True to her word, Carol caught Rindy before she could wake Therese. Or realize that Therese was naked under the covers. She’d recruited Rindy to help her make breakfast. Which, practically speaking, led to a much bigger mess to clean up, but there were more important things to worry about at the moment.

“Rindy, sweetheart?”

Rindy didn’t look up. Her tongue poked slightly out of her mouth as she concentrated on cracking an egg the way Carol had shown her. “Yes?” Rindy cracked the egg against the bowl without adding any shell to the mixture. “I did it, Mommy, I did it!”

Rindy’s grin was infectious and distracting. Carol kissed both her cheeks. “You did! My smart, special girl.” She drank in Rindy’s smile, how wide and uninhibited it was. She thought of Therese and the dimples that showed when her love was really and truly happy. “Rindy, can I ask you a question about something else you did?”

Rindy shrugged. “Okay. Can I put the syrup on Aunt Therese’s pancakes?”

“I think we’d better let Aunt Therese do that. She might still want to taste some pancakes underneath all the syrup.  Rindy. Honey, you remember last night when Aunt Therese took you to the car?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Aunt Therese, she thought she heard you call her Mama. Do you remember saying that, sweetheart?”

Rindy frowned, shrugged again. “I thought it. I didn’t know I said it.”

“You thought it?”

“Yup.”

“Is that how you think of Therese? As Mama?”

“Yup.”

“How long have you thought of her like that?”

“Don’t know. Since I heard Lizzie and Aunt Peggy and Aunt Angie.”

Carol felt her heart sink for reasons she couldn’t have articulated. “You think of Therese like that because you want to be like Lizzie and her mothers?”

“No,” Rindy said, drawing out the word. “I think of Aunt Therese like that because of Aunt Therese. Lizzie’s the one who said you can have more than one mom, but Aunt Therese is the one who does all the mom stuff. She reads to me and plays with me and helps me with things, and lets me try her camera even though you said she didn’t have to. She was doing all that stuff before we met Uncle Steve and Aunt Peggy and Aunt Angie.”

“I suppose she was,” Carol said, blinking away the threat of tears. “Baby, if you felt that way, why do you only think it? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Didn’t want anyone to get mad.”

“Anyone like who, me?”

“No. Daddy.”

Carol wasn’t sure if she was pleased or displeased by the correction. All she knew was that Rindy could not grow up like her, stifled and unable or unwilling to express herself. “Sweetheart,” she tilted Rindy’s chin up. “You can talk to me, alright? Or Therese, or, or your daddy. Whatever you’re thinking, you don’t have to just think it. You can talk to us. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m thinking about toast. Can we have toast?”

Carol laughed, kissed Rindy’s cheek again. “Yes, darling, yes, we can have toast.”

“Can I call Aunt Therese Mama, instead of just thinking it?”

Carol swallowed hard. The question meant so much yet Rindy asked it so casually. “I’ll talk to her about it, okay? She loves you so much, Rindy, you know that?”

“I know. Me too. Can I pour the milk?”

* * *

 A deer in headlights, that was how Therese looked. A very beautiful, very naked deer in headlights.

“Sweetheart?”

Carol sat on the edge of their bed after relating her conversation with Rindy. Their breakfast smelled very good and was in danger of going very cold, but Carol barely noticed. She watched Therese pull the sheet over herself as if Carol hadn’t seen her nude a thousand times.

“She, she really meant it,” Therese said quietly, studying the comforter.

“She really did. Not for you to hear it, but the thought…” Carol trailed off. “You’re not happy about that.”

She tried to keep her voice even, keep from remembering that word and how sweet it sounded coming from Rindy. She pushed back images of Therese holding Jacob and Angie joking about baby fever.

Therese looked up, met her eyes. “It’s not that.”

She certainly sounded less than thrilled. “Then what?” Carol asked, touching Therese’s leg over the covers.

“I…it’s a lot. That word, it means a lot.”

“If this is about me, I’ve told you I don’t mind. You’re not taking anything from me, Jacob didn’t come from Angie, but he certainly won’t be referring to her as his aunt.”

“It’s not you. I don’t know that it ever was. It’s me.”

“What about you?”

“What if I’m not enough?”

“Therese?”

“I don’t know how to do that. Be, be Mama. Aunt Therese is, I understand that. Her. But Mama is so much more, Carol.”

“It is,” Carol said softly. “And it’s not something you want?”

“It’s not something I want to fail at,” Therese corrected. “Richard used to, he would get fired all the time. Lose a job, find another. It never bothered him; he always had his parents to fall back on. Me, I lost a job a month before I met you and I almost cried right in my boss’s office.”

“Therese—”

“That was just a job, Carol. A small research job at a small paper, and when they didn’t need me anymore they just let me go. I did my job well, I think, just, the assignment was over so they fired me. I knew how to do that job. I don’t know how to be a mother.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true. How could it not be? My mother wasn’t you or Angie or Peggy. I never learned how to do this and if I screw it up, I can’t just quit and find another job like she did.”

Carol’s stomach twisted. Therese’s voice rose with each sentence, the pain showing clearer with every word. “Therese,” Carol murmured. “You are not your mother.”

“I didn’t say I was.”

“But that’s what you’re afraid of?”

It wasn’t a question, not really, and Therese didn’t answer.

“Angel, look at me.” Carol waited until wide, wet eyes met hers. “All parents fail. Despite what the magazines and Harge’s mother would have you believe. God knows I’ve failed, so many times already.” Carol rolled her eyes at her own mistakes. “Failure doesn’t mean you’re unfit. Despite what certain doctors and Harge’s mother would have you believe.”

“I don’t understand.” Therese shook her head, wiped her eyes. “Of course I don’t understand, this is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Failing, making mistakes, is not the same as quitting, giving up. There’s a world of difference, Therese, and you wouldn’t give up.”

“How do you know?”

Carol cupped her face with both hands. “We’re talking about it, right now. You care too much. You’re not Richard, and you are nothing like your mother. Worrying so much proves that.”

“I still wouldn’t know what I was doing, how to be a mother.”

“You think you don’t. Therese, you’ve been taking care of Rindy for years. You were only missing the title.” Carol took a breath. “Do you remember when you first came to visit Rindy and I? What did I tell you about your photographs?”

“Get that damn camera out of my face, I look a mess?”

“After that,” Carol said sternly, though the slight curve of Therese’s lips brought warmth and relief. “Sometimes talent comes from other people. Other people telling you you have it, because you can’t see for yourself. You have talent, Therese. I see it and Rindy sees it. She wouldn’t have called you what she did otherwise.”

Therese exhaled a shaky breath. “Carol…”

Carol leaned forward and kissed her, let their foreheads touch afterward. “If you don’t want to be Mama, that’s fine. Rindy will love you just as much and so will I. You don’t have to be anyone you don’t want to be. But if it’s about not believing you _can_ be that person, not thinking you’re capable…you are, Therese. You’re so much more than capable.”

A few minutes later, after Carol had helped Therese into pajamas and Rindy yelled down the hall about breakfast, they made their way to the kitchen. Rindy was at the table, halfway through her pancakes already.

“Mommy, the food’s getting cold!”

“So sorry to keep you waiting, my princess,” said Carol, dramatically enough that Rindy giggled.

“I’m sure it’s delicious, Rindy,” Therese said, adjusting the belt of her robe.

Rindy grinned, picking up her milk glass with both hands. “I helped make it.”

“I heard. Thank you both, very much.”

“Welcome, Aunt ‘Rhese,” Rindy said, wiping a milk mustache off on her sleeve.”

Carol watched their interaction. Therese shot her an uncertain look and Carol squeezed her hand, kissed it. Therese let go of her hand and crossed to the table, knelt by Rindy’s chair.

“Rindy? If, if you ever want to call me something other than Aunt Therese, I wouldn’t mind. I’d like it, I mean. But if you don’t, you can, you can call me whatever you want.”

“Okay. Morning, Mama.”

Therese blinked. “Good morning, Rindy.”

“Hi, Mama.”

“Hi, Rindy.”

“Mama, try the eggs. I helped with them just like Mommy showed me.”

“Okay, Rindy.”

* * *

 “Therese is having quite the week, isn’t she?”

Carol smiled at Abby from across the furniture shop. “It’s only Tuesday,”

“So? Still quite the week.”

Joining Carol behind the counter, Abby dropped the Tuesday edition of the _Times_ down in front of her. Jacob’s picture took up most of the page.

“She really does have skills, your girl. Made Jake look good.”

“He’s a baby. All babies are beautiful.”

Abby scoffed and gestured at the empty shop. “We’re alone, no need to lie. Most babies are fairly ugly.”

“Abby!”

“What?”

“What about your goddaughter?”

“Rindy’s the exception. She looked like you and was perfectly gorgeous.”

“Flatterer. What do you want?”

“You mind closing up on your own tonight? I’ve got pressing business.”

“Uh-huh. What’s the name of the girl you so urgently have to press against?”

“Proper ladies never tell, Carol.”

“You haven’t been a proper lady since 1934.”

Abby muttered something obscene, too quiet for any last minute customers to hear. “Really though. First shots of America’s First Son? Quite the coup.”

“Yeah. Hopefully it’s a steppingstone to more, her boss seeing what an asset she can be.”

“Well, Rindy certainly loves her.”

“That she does.”

Abby shook her head and laughed. “Nitwit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. You’ve been smiling for two days. It’s nice.”

“It’s nice,” Carol agreed. “When they first met, Abby, I was so scared Rindy wouldn’t understand, that she’d hate Therese.” She’d hidden those fears well, for Therese’s sake, but they’d festered for days beforehand.

“Rindy isn’t capable of hating anyone, and no one could hate Therese.”

“But knowing Rindy loves her like that, as much as I do…”

“I know. I’m happy for you, all of you. You deserve—”

Abby was cut off by the bell over the door announcing a new customer. Carol’s seemingly permanent smile froze. Harge was on her threshold, in her shop for the first time ever. He wore an overcoat and an angry scowl, and he carried a newspaper in one hand.

“Well isn’t this a surprise?” Abby muttered. “So much for leaving early. Also, forget what I said about no one hating Therese.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While things in this series are planned out to a certain extent, I'm always anxious to check out prompts, or just to hear from you guys. Hit me up on Tumblr if you're so inclined.
> 
> http://cblgblog.tumblr.com/


	5. Chapter 5

Harge stalked across the room as if he weren’t the one person here who did not own it. He glanced at the paper on the counter. “So, you’ve seen it.” He threw down his own newspaper on top of  Abby's. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Abby scoffed. “Can I help you, sir?” she asked, all fake professionalism.

“Shut up, would you? For once in your life, just shut up.”

Carol exchanged a look with Abby. Harge hated her passionately, but he usually maintained some level of stilted civility. At least when he wasn’t pushed, and Abby had barely gotten started.

“All right then. Just browsing. Got it,” Abby said with a bright, for the customer smile.

Harge glared at her, then turned back to Carol. “What do you have to say about this?” he demanded, stabbing his finger down against the words about Jacob, the picture accompanying them.

**Red, White, and BLUE! It’s a BOY For America’s Favorite Hero!**

Below that screaming headline was a simple photograph.  On the couch sat Peggy, with baby Jake - Jacob the article made sure to say - in her arms, half wrapped in the handmade blanket his mother had made for him in the final days of her pregnancy. (And why had Carol been so shocked to learn that Peggy could knit?) Next to her sat Steve, one arm around her shoulders, the other around her arms, helping to cradle their tiny darling, whom both regarded with looks of adoration.

Next to them sat Lizzie on the back of the couch, mary jane clad feet resting next to Steve's head, with Angie stood behind her, arms around Lizzie's middle, cheek resting against her head as Lizzie smiled sweetly.

Cute, adorable really. A perfect family moment. A lie in one photo, perpetrated by Therese and her camera against the rest of the world.

Carol would  believe it being so sweet and perfect if she hadn't been there listening to Peggy grumble about wearing real clothing, to Steve complain about being a dancing monkey and threatening Lizzie to death by tickling if she took her shoes off just one more time.

With Lizzie running wild, the perfect pose of her at their feet with Angie leaning against Steve's legs hadn't worked, so they'd had to go to plan B, which was Angie holding her still in back of the sofa with lovingly whispered threats against her 'Bambina Demone.'

“Well?” Harge said, practically growled.

"It's a great photo," Carol answered frankly, eyes skimming the description.

_A perfect heart throb: America's most beloved family poses with their newest member. The dashing Captain Steven Rogers sits with darling wife Margaret Carter, and newborn son Jacob Rogers, along with treasured firstborn Elizabeth Rogers, and her mother, beloved actress Angela Martin. Not pictured is the little sweetheart Nerinda Aird, a child so close to Elizabeth she might as well be part of the family._

“They forgot the ‘future’ before ‘wife.’ And I think they used too many adjectives.”

Harge slammed a fist down on her counter. “You think this is funny? What they’re saying about Rindy—”

“Originally they were going to call her Nerinda Rogers and Lizzie was going to be the middle child,” Carol said. “Therese talked them down from that.”

“And I suppose you want me to thank your little shopgirl.”

“Actually,” Abby said, “Therese is a news photographer. Carol and I are shopgirls.”

“Abby,” Carol said on a sigh.

“Sorry. Shop women.”

“Carol,” Harge said, gruff and stilted. There was a vein showing near his temple. “Can we have some privacy, please?”

“Privacy. In my very public shop.” Closing her eyes a moment, Carol walked around to the other side of the counter. “Let’s go to my office.” It was Abby’s office too, but Carol felt a need for ownership in this situation. “Abby, you can go on, I’ll close up.”

“Think I’ll stay awhile,” Abby said, casual and easy. “I’ve got some things to finish up.”

She had much better things to get on with, a lady waiting for her, but Abby would stay, in case things got too ugly with Harge.

Abby had been infuriating Carol for decades. She was the best friend Carol could ever hope for.

Bracing for a headache, Carol led Harge to the office in back of the shop. A small room with a single desk and chair, mostly for going over expenses. Nothing like Harge’s office at the firm with the big windows, his name on the door, a monument to his success

Harge started in on her almost before she closed the door. “You will not take Rindy from me, do you understand?”

His voice shook. Carol blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I know what you’re doing, and I won’t stand for it, Carol.”

“Tell me what I’m doing this time, Harge, because—”

“You’re trying to steal my child.”

“Our child. How exactly am I doing that when she lives in your house?”

“You’re trying to cut me from her life.”

“She lives in your house.”

“And the whole goddamn country doesn’t know why, doesn’t think I’m her father. You’ve turned me into a laughingstock. My own colleagues, people I’ve worked with for years, are asking me if Rindy’s got superpowers yet.”

She’d laugh if Harge didn’t look so murderous. “You don’t actually believe that. You know I never—”

“I don’t. I don’t put a thing past you.”

“He’s a man. From what I hear, the serum made that more prominent than before. You can go ahead and put this one past me.”

“What the hell happened to you? What’s the matter with you?”

“You don’t know? Didn’t your mother pay a small fortune to figure that out?” Carol took a breath, forced her voice to lower. “You don’t actually think Rindy’s not yours.”

Harge stared hard at her, taking off his hat and twisting the brim with rough fingers. “That’s not the point.”

“It should be.”

“The whole world shouldn’t think that my wife humiliated me three goddamn times.”

“They don’t. Only the lawyers know what happened, and the rest didn’t.”

“The rest is what people believe.”

“And you want to blame me for that?” Carol asked, anger rising again. “I had nothing to do with what that reporter heard. She wasn’t even supposed to be there. Easter was our day, hers and mine, but you took her and paraded her in front of New York’s elite so you could play family man and find clients. She’d never have been there and Steve would never have opened his mouth if you’d stuck to our agreement.”

“And hers.”

“What?”

“Easter would’ve been you and Rindy and the girl, right?”

Carol tried not to grit her teeth. “Therese, Rindy and I, yes. Therese had her Easter basket packed and hidden away.”

“Well, what a fucking disappointment for Therese.”

Carol couldn’t decide which was worse, Harge refusing to acknowledge that Therese had a name, or using it and making it so ugly. “Jesus Christ. It’s been years, Harge, how long are you going to hold on to this?”

“You don’t think I’m entitled to a little anger after what you’ve done, what you keep doing?”

“I had nothing to do with any of the press coverage, or—”

“That girl is not my child’s mother. She never will be, no matter how hard you try bringing Rindy into this sick fantasy of yours.”

Carol closed her eyes. Well, there it was. She’d hoped against hope that Rindy wouldn’t say anything, but hadn’t the right to tell her not to. Harge had shown up an hour early on Sunday and whisked Rindy away before she could say goodbye to Therese and before Carol could talk to him about the new title.

Admittedly she hadn’t tried very hard, hadn’t called him in the days that followed. She’d been too happy for a battle.

So much for that.

“Harge—”

“I was going to let it go. I was going to be the bigger person, against any sort of good judgement. I’m tired of fighting with you and trying to make sense of what goes on in your head. And then I see the morning paper. Replacing me as Rindy’s father and having her call that girl that name. The lawyers and the shrinks will love this.”

“I’m not replacing you with anyone. Rindy knows perfectly well who her father is. She loves you as much as she always has. As for mama, I didn’t think you were using the title.”

His fingers clenched white against the brown of his hat. “And when I get married and start throwing new titles around, we’ll see what you have to say then.”

“If you get married and Rindy comes home calling someone Father or Papa, then yes, I imagine I’d have quite a bit to say, considering.”

“It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? You talk big to the lawyers about doing what’s best for Rindy, but it’s all a fucking game, you and Abby and your shopgirl laughing at me with the rest of the country.”

Carol breathed in again, very aware that Harge probably wanted to strangle her. She knew the feeling. “I’m sorry about the paper. I wasn’t sure they’d mention Rindy at all, but I should’ve warned you.”

“You owe me so much more than that.”

“Harge…I _want_ you to remarry, I want you happy. You should be with someone who makes you happy.”

And someone who took his attention off of her.

“Yeah, you keep saying that, don’t you?”

“I can’t make you happy. I couldn’t when we were married and I certainly can’t now.”

“You never even tried. I loved you and you never—”

“You didn’t love me, Harge. You loved who you wanted me to be. And when I tried to be that person, both of us hated her.”

“You’re making excuses.”

“I never claimed to be a good wife. And I thought you were here about Rindy. I’m tired too, Harge, of digging into the same wounds and getting nowhere. Nothing changes.”

“This is about Rindy. You making her call the girl that name, that’s a change.”

“I didn’t make her do anything, she did it on her own.”

“Of course she did. And if she walked out into traffic on her own, that would be fine too.”

“Not even you can be ridiculous enough to compare—”

“It’s not ridiculous. It’s unhealthy, making her think this is normal. And what happens when she starts talking about her two mothers at school, huh? What happens to you and your shopgirl then?”

“We talked on Sunday about school and keeping it a special thing between us.” A talk Carol hated, but couldn’t see a way around.

Harge scoffed. “She’s a child, Carol. Are you really going to trust in her ability to keep a secret? Do you have any idea what they’ll do to you and that girl if the wrong people find out?”

“Probably the same thing you did to us, to me.”

“You had the best treatment there is, for all the good it did. You went home at the end of the day. You think that’s typical? The wrong people find you, Carol, and you and that girl won’t be coming home. You’ll see how people like you get treated when there’s no one paying them to be gentle.”

“People like me," Carol repeated. "Don’t pretend you give a damn about either of us. Especially now.”

“I couldn’t care less about your plaything. Except now you’ve made Rindy care, and if something happens to her, Rindy suffers.”

“Nothing is going to happen to either of us,” Carol said, wondering how she was having the same conversation with both Harge and Therese.

“You can’t be that ignorant. You can’t manage to take everything from me and still be that stupid.”

 “I never took a damn thing from—”

“You took everything!" Harge nearly roared, his face red, his hair actually out of place, a feat Carol didn't think possible. He slammed his fist hard into the wall, causing the noise to echo and Carol to jump. "You took my reputation, my life, my work, you took my family's faith in me, my family... you took away our daughter's right to have a normal life, to be safe.”

“Safe? She’s always been safe with me, Harge, and you knew that while you were lying to the courts saying something different. You knew my baby was never in danger with me.”

"Every single day you put her in danger. She's not just a child of divorce, she's the child of a lesbian." He hissed the word, voice dropping a bit lower when he said it. "Do you know what kind of target that paints on her back?"

"She has family to keep her safe."

"The girl at Coney Island was surrounded by people, her uncle was a lawyer. Those boys out in Montana that were in the paper? They were supposedly strong enough to break horses, but they were still strung out behind a car.”

 The way he said it, the way he moved his hand, made Carol's stomach churn.

 “All those soldier boys who got sent away waving blue papers, the big strong ones with more training than I ever had, with guns and backup and a war at their back. some of them never made it home. That's not to mention the women. How the fuck is a seven-year-old meant to be kept safe when grown men and women aren't?"

His voice cracked on the last words. He brushed a hand over his hair to smooth it back into place as he looked away from her, but only made it worse, leaving him looking more flustered than before. Worse than she’d ever seen him, actually, at least when sober.

He took a breath, hand clenching into a fist at his side before laying flat again, patting his thigh as if looking for something, restless, He tossed his hat aside on her desk, apparently lacking something better to do.  "How can I try and keep her safe when she's not mine to the world, her mother's a lesbian, and Rogers is living a queer lifestyle of his own?"

His last words made Carol go still. “Steve’s not—”

“You think I don’t know what _Steve_ is, how they’re living? I was stupid enough not to see what you were doing with Abby, but things change. Children talk. They don’t know enough to keep themselves safe.”

Carol stared at him, tried not to think too hard about what he might know. That was a panic to be put off ‘til later. “We can keep her safe, Harge, we always have. We can teach her to keep herself safe. She has a literal superhero on her side now.”

"What good does that do when he's inciting the public against her, placing the target himself? He has enemies we can’t even imagine. He's painting our child the bastard, or he’s letting others do it, which might be worse. What happens when someone tries to hurt him using his children and ours gets caught in the crossfire?”

“They wouldn’t survive it,” Carol said. She’d seen too much of Steve and Peggy to wonder about that. Though she’d worried. Ever since Peggy went off on that mission while pregnant with Jake, she’d wondered, from time to time, when she let herself, whether their children could ever be truly protected. Even by them.

“Would Rindy?”

“Yes. I will always, always fight for Rindy.”

Harge actually laughed. “That would be a first. You gave her up for a shopgirl you knew five minutes. She’s going to be old enough to figure that out someday, you know.”

“She’ll be old enough to see the truth one day. And Therese will still be there, and we will answer her questions.”

“Like why you fought harder for the shopgirl than Rindy?”

“I didn’t—”

“You could’ve had her. You could’ve had a real relationship with our daughter if you’d tried.”

“I did try. All that winter I tried pleasing you and your parents, playing the good wife only to have you—”

“I would’ve given you joint custody. That’s what I went in there for, when you made your big speech.”

Carol wished he weren’t on the side of the room with the desk. She needed something to hold on to. She was dizzy trying to keep up with him. “Joint custody. You mean what we had in the first place, before you brought that injunction on me.”

"Did you know there's a very old law in America, in New York, that says that a kid's 'tender years' are best spent with a mother, no matter what?"

"My lawyer looked into it. As antiquated as it is, it wouldn't have helped me."

"Carol, the judges here are antiquated. You would have won. I was going to offer to share, but you gave everything up for a, a lover instead."

“You were going to share. Your lawyer didn’t say anything about that when we went in.”

“And yours didn’t say anything about that monologue on how desperately you wanted the shopgirl.”

“You had tapes, ones you worked very hard to get. Or paid someone else to, like always.”

“And you had precedent. An antiquated state with antiquated laws, a record of compliance. You’re a pretty, well-educated, White woman who’d been to therapy. You could’ve blamed me for everything that went wrong in your life, just like your lawyer wanted to, and you would have won. My lawyer made that clear.”

“That’s funny, because mine made it clear that we had no chance against yours. All the money we paid, and they were making each other’s cases, not ours. But don’t think for a minute that I believe you.”

“No, of course not. I’m the bad guy again, the liar. Because if not, you threw your daughter away for nothing.”

“I’ve never done that and I never will,” Carol said, pushing hard against images of Therese’s mother, “And you’ve never conceded, never in your life, not when it counts. You can’t even lose at tennis without having a fit after. Your parents never would’ve forgiven you, and we both know the hell that would’ve brought. And you hated me far too much for that.”

“Carol—”

“It’s been almost three years and you still hate me, you’re still bitter. I’m supposed to believe that after a few months, you would’ve compromised?”

He was lying. Manipulating. There’d been times he’d softened before, unexpectedly, given in enough that she survived their marriage longer than she should have. But he was lying about this. Of course he was.

“Because I thought you were getting better. And then you made your last stand for that girl instead of Rindy. You could’ve won.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it would’ve dragged on and on, and by the end all we’d have done is tear our child in two. It’s easy to say, convenient. Your noble intentions and my missed opportunities now that it’s done and you have everything you want.”

“You destroying Rindy is not what I want. Rindy asking me if I’m still her daddy, if she’s still allowed to call me that, is not what I want.”

“She’s never asked—”

“You. She never asked you. And you’re not there on our drives to your apartment, when she asks where I’ll be all weekend, if she can call me, if she can come home if she needs to.”

“She’s never had to do that,” Carol said, though her stomach was in knots.

“But she has to know she can. That I won’t disappear, like you did.”

“I never disappeared.”

“You did. You did, and then you gave up.”

“I left you, Harge. You. You’re the one who’s never understood that wife and mother aren’t always the same, that you can be one without the other. I left New York because you made it impossible for me to see Rindy at all before the custody hearing. I had nothing left to stay for.”

“You had us."

“I had you, and that was supposed to be enough.”

“You’re confusing her. You’re confusing her and putting her in danger, and you’re turning her against me.”

“I’ve never told you, Rindy or anyone else that you weren’t a good father. You don’t think I know what your parents say about me? You don’t think Rindy knows? You want me to change the opinion of the fucking country, but you won’t stand up to your mother.”

"I never told anyone you weren't her mother,. And I never let anyone else do it either."

“No. You just told them I was unfit, not good enough to be her mother. You want me to shout it from the rooftops, that I never slept with Steve? You think you know how gossip works because you hear things from our seven-year-old? I listened to gossip for ten years at your business parties, Harge, that's what ladies do at those things. It's all they do, they talk about the target of the week. And the more that person says or does to make them stop, the more they dig in. The more attention we give them and their bullshit, the more they'll give us. You want me to fuel a fire to put it out.”

"You're encouraging it, and letting them encourage it. You're making her doubt everything. Making everyone doubt me."

“What worries you more, Harge? Rindy, or your reputation? You think mine has gotten a boon out of this? I’m the divorcee who slept with Captain America while she was still married.”

“You’re the person who’s going to put an end to this ‘mama business.” He used the title like a curse. “This is it, Carol, I won’t tolerate any more.”

“Or what, you’ll take me back to court?”

“Why would I bother? You wouldn’t fight for her anyway.”

"You don't get it both ways, Harge! You don't get to bully and threaten and push until I surrender, and then criticize me for making what compromises I could. You wanted me to stay here after the injunction. Sit around that big, empty house for months until the hearing. Sit there and think about what I'd done, like a child in timeout. And then when I didn't, you had me followed, you used it against me so I had to come back and fight you again. You dangled Rindy in front of me for months, a prize I'd get if I was good that day, and you were feeling generous. And I did just what you wanted the first time. I sat in that house with no one and thought about everything I did, everything you could take from me. I went to your doctors and learned how sick I was, how damaged. I got worn down to nothing, just like you wanted. And then when you finally got what you were after, when I was finally ready to give up, then you fault me for doing that, for not being strong enough to win?”

She was flushed by the end of it, breathing as if she’d just dragged a heavy piece of furniture in by herself. She fought tears, sweat gathering on her brow. She and Harge must have looked quite the pair. He was sweating too, strands of hair sticking to his forehead.

"You know what we do every morning, Rindy and I?"

"No, I don't, Harge.” His voice had gone quiet. Carol found hers doing the same.

"We have breakfast. She gets up, gets dressed. Once she's ready for school we sit down and have breakfast together."

"You hate breakfast,” Carol said, remembering years of grumbling about indigestion and acid reflux.

"I do. She has cereal, and I have coffee and toast, and we talk about our plans for the day, about our week, how she slept, did she have any silly dreams, what's in the news that I can talk about with her. On days she's going to visit you afterwards, we talk about her plans, and I have to tell her many, many times that she can call me if she needs to, and she can come home after because I won't leave while she's gone with you. Imagine the conversation we had when she saw those headlines about who her father is. And you think it’s a joke. I’m sure Abby’s had a field day. But it’s not a joke. And you’d like to think I’m lying about all of it, wouldn’t you, the things she says? Because that would mean you got away clean, got the best of both worlds without causing any damage.”

Carol stood as still as she could, trying to slow her racing heart. They both knew Abby was standing close by the door. Carol wondered if Abby could hear her heartbeat, hear her crumbling through the wood.  

"When you have breakfast with her, Harge, does she talk about our weekends, what she's done?" A rhetorical question, half-said just to give herself time.

“Yes.”

“Does she talk about Therese?”

“Occasionally.”

The dismissal in his voice made her want to scream.  "Do you ever wonder why she only talks about her occasionally?" Not that she fully believed that.

Harge said nothing.

"She told me she hasn't called Therese mama before because she didn't want you to get mad. She doesn't talk about Therese because she knows you hate her, like she knows you hate Abby. You think that's safe and healthy, making her feel guilty for loving two people who love her back, making her afraid to admit it?"

“Those people aren’t her family.”

“Abby is her godmother, and Therese _is_ her family.”

“That girl doesn’t have a family. She has to steal mine.”

“She never took anything from you, Harge, and she doesn’t need to. She has a family, and Rindy’s part of it. And Rindy’s _happy_ , Harge. Being with Therese, loving Therese makes her happy. We can figure out the rest, figure out how to keep her safe, but she deserves happiness too. Something you and I never had, not by the time she was old enough to notice. She deserves to be happy, but how is she supposed to do that if she never sees what it’s like? She never saw it between us.”

“She sees plenty of happiness, if she doesn't tell you about it that says more about you than me.”

“And if she doesn’t tell you about the happiness she sees with Therese and I, then you’re the one making her feel afraid, unsafe. The world can do that for the rest of her life. You’re the one doing it now.”

She’d gone from lugging heavy furniture to going ten rounds with Peggy. She wished again that Harge wasn’t blocking her desk. He wiped his face, maybe held it in his hands a second too long. He picked up his hat and tried to undo the damage.

“Can I expect Rindy on Friday, or not?” Carol asked, flatter than she meant to. It was the only way to keep her voice steady.

Harge didn’t answer right away. “Saturday. Mother’s made plans; we can’t get out of it. I’m sorry.”

He might’ve actually sounded it. Carol couldn’t tell by looking, couldn’t keep her eyes open without the burn of tears. “Okay.”

The room went quiet. Carol thought she heard him swallow a few times.

“I suppose I should go,” he said finally.

“I suppose you should.”

She heard his steps over the floor, felt it as he passed close to her.

“Goodnight,” he said.

Carol wasn’t sure if she said it back or not.

* * *

 Therese had the radio on as she made dinner. She whistled badly to a tune she only half knew. Whitmore hadn’t sworn at her once today. And he’d given her a photo assignment that didn’t involve Captain America. Not an especially good photo assignment, but she’d be taking her own pictures, not doing busywork on everyone else’s. Or worse, fetching coffee.

It was a good day.

It got better as she heard Carol’s key in the lock. She turned and smiled and was about to offer a very enthusiastic greeting. And then she saw Carol. The lines of her face, the red in her eyes. How she stood as if her favorite fur coat were about to crush her.

“Carol?”

Therese forgot about her cooking, forgot what lyrics she’d previously remembered of the song. She cupped Carol’s face, which somehow looked both younger and older than it should.

“Carol? What happened?”

But Carol only held her. Clutched at her, really, and after a few fruitless attempts, Therese gave up inquiring about the why and simply held Carol back, let Carol’s winter hat fall to the ground so she could stroke Carol’s hair. Carol’s grip almost hurt. She understood nothing of what was happening here, except that there was nothing she could say.

Therese held Carol against her in the living room until their dinner (what had she even been making?) started to burn.

* * *

 Therese was eventually able to coax out a recap of the confrontation, though she was quite sure Carol was leaving things out. Phrases like “that’s about it,” and “some other nonsense” made it obvious. Carol said it would only hurt more, recalling every ridiculous detail. And Carol was already hurting, worse than she usually allowed Therese to see.

So Therese did what Carol asked and let it be.

By Thursday evening Carol was playing at normalcy. She said they should go somewhere nice tomorrow night, and Therese had agreed. Even though tomorrow was supposed to be Rindy’s night with them.

Carol did tell her of the remark about Steve, their friend’s “lifestyle.” When Therese called Angie to warn her about anything Harge might know or suspect, Angie had only waved her off.

“Honey, half the country suspects. At least. If he tries moving beyond suspicion, we’ll deal with it then, but we’ll deal with it. Whatever he’s done before or thinks he’s capable of, Steve and English are in a whole other league, trust me.”

Therese knew this was true. But Harge had brought so much pain and fear to Carol, to her, it was hard to picture him swept aside so easily.

But sweep Angie did. She’d long since moved on from Harge, to more pleasant points of conversation.

“So today little private America priced himself a sharpshooter.’

“Should I know what you just said?”

“He managed to pee mid-diaper change, hit right down the front of my shirt, and when I moved to cover him, he drenched himself and managed to arc across the changing table and get the wall.”

"Remind me that sons are a bad idea, if I ever say different.”

"Oh Lizzie was just as bad. Somehow that kid soaked every piece of furniture. And us. And poor Mrs. Dugan's Sunday best. Lizzie thought her brother’s antics were hysterical by the way. He might win her over yet if he manages to keep finding impressive ways to piss.”

“Here’s hoping?” Adjusting the receiver, Therese leaned back on the couch, thoroughly out of her depth. “Tell me again why babies pee all over everything?”

It wasn’t Angie who replied, but Carol. She emerged from the hallway wearing a robe, damp hair clinging to the back of her neck. The shower had turned off a few minutes ago, while Angie was explaining which mother Jacob liked better.

“Dominance,” said Carol, absently caressing the back of Therese’s neck as she walked past.

“What?” said Therese, half-covering the receiver.

“Is that Jersey? Tell her I say hi.”

“Angie says hi.”

“Hi,” Carol said.

“What about dominance?” Therese asked.

“What?” said Carol, circling the living room. “Have you seen my brush?”

“Other bathroom. Babies. Peeing. Dominance.” Therese spoke closer to the phone. “Carol says hi.”

“Oh, right. Dominance.” Carol shrugged. “Harge has been reading _National Geographic_ to Rindy since she was a newborn.”

“Really?”

“The stock pages made her cry. You’re a darling,” Carol said, kissing Therese’s head as she retraced her steps, probably to find the wayward brush.

“Aww Jersey, so are you. I’ll say so in my next Tony speech. Doesn’t get you out of sitting for the Mad Pisser first time Peg’s up for a date and the Fancys are busy.”

Therese laughed and chatted a few more minutes before Angie ended the conversation, citing baby needs. Therese had barely stood from the couch before the phone rang.

“Someone else pee on you?” Therese asked, picking it up.

There was a pause, followed by a stiff reply. “Is Carol there?”

Therese wasn’t sure if she’d gone pale or red-faced. Harge. She’d never spoken to him on the phone before. Rarely spoken to him at all.

“Hello? Hello?”

Therese swallowed. “Yes,” she said, then had to say it again because she hardly heard it herself.

“Therese? Is, may I speak to Carol?”

He’d never used her name before, at least not within her hearing. “Is Rindy alright?”

Perhaps he was using her name because something awful had happened. Seemed the logical explanation.

“My daughter is fine. Is Carol there or not?”

She heard him breathe into the phone, like she had during those first weeks of separation, when she would call Carol and the line would pick up but no one would speak to her. She wondered sometimes how many of those calls were answered by Harge.

“Rindy is fine,” he said now. “Nothing’s wrong. May I please speak to Carol, if she’s there?”

She wanted to say no. No, he couldn’t talk to Carol, no he couldn’t hurt her again. He would never hurt her again, she wouldn’t let him.

Instead she told him to hold on.

Therese was torn. She didn’t especially like yelling across the apartment for Carol, and there was another phone in their bedroom.

She didn’t want Carol talking to Harge in their bedroom, for reasons she couldn’t articulate.

She set the phone down (did not for a second think of hanging it up, of course not) and went down the hall to their room.

Carol sat in front of her vanity in the master bath, gently tugging the ends of her hair with the brush. She frowned at Therese through the mirror. “Angel? Everything alright?”

So it was pale. She’d gone pale at the sound of Harge’s voice, not red. “Harge is on the phone.”

Carol’s eyes widened for a split second. She set the brush down very carefully and stood, walked to Therese. “Was he cruel to you?”

Carol was staring hard at her, searching, like she’d do it all night if she had to, like their phone line wasn’t sitting open, an unexploded bomb waiting to detonate. “No,” Therese said.

Carol kept staring, kept searching. Then she smiled, just barely, and moved past Therese.

She bypassed the phone on the nightstand.

Therese usually liked to at least pretend she wasn’t listening to Carol’s calls with Harge. Why, she didn’t know, because Carol always said they had no secrets and Therese was free to sit in on the nonsense if she wanted.

She liked to pretend she didn’t want. Much of the time she wasn’t pretending. In this instance though, she followed Carol without pretext.

Carol was perched on the arm of the couch, red nails tapping lightly against the receiver. She looked casual, calm. On a first, inexperienced glance anyway. Therese came to stand next to her and Carol smiled in her direction, but Therese knew she didn’t have Carol’s attention, not really.

“Oh,” Carol said into the phone, with an edge to her voice Therese didn’t like hearing, which was only for Harge. “Then why…oh.”

Her tone changed and Therese took a step closer, curious, but it was no good. She couldn’t hear Harge’s side beyond an indistinct murmur, and Carol’s reaction didn’t give enough away.

“Are you sure….yes. Yes, we can do that, I’ll make it work. All right. See you then.”

Carol seemed to take a long time setting the phone in its cradle, though Therese could’ve been imagining that in her impatience. “Carol? What’s going on? Is Rindy coming tomorrow?”

She’d never been so willing to cancel dinner plans. At least ones that didn’t involve Richard.

“No, no. Harge’s mother has an engagement. They’re expected.”

“Oh. Then what, Carol, what did he want?” Carol was only half looking at her, her voice strained in a way Therese couldn’t make sense of.

“Something’s come up again. He’s got a business trip next week, has to be in Baltimore on Wednesday night. He asked if I could take Rindy until the end of the weekend, when he gets back.”

Therese felt her jaw wanting to come open. “What about the nanny, his parents?”

“He asked me,” Carol repeated, finally turned her head to look at Therese properly. “Asked us.”

There were tears at the edges of Carol’s eyes, the grey of them brighter than usual.

“We’ll have to drive her to school and back. I have the more flexible schedule, I’ll talk to Abby.” She blinked several times, hard. “I’m sorry, I should’ve talked to you.”

“It’s okay.”

“I didn’t want him to change his mind.”

Therese watched her carefully. “He still might, Carol. Wednesday’s a long way off.”

She felt like Santa Claus snatching away Jacob’s first Christmas present.

“He might, yes.”

Therese watched Carol, the tiny tremble in Carol’s fingers as she gripped the arm of the couch.

Therese closed the small distance between them and folded Carol into her arms, knowing another blouse was going to be soaked with tears. Carol’s nails dug into Therese’s back, and Therese drew slow patterns over Carol’s spine.

“I can drive out and get her from school on Friday, if you want,” said Therese.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, all right. Okay. So, last one for this installment. I imagine some of you will have a lot to say about this one. And even if you only have a little to say, meet me in the comments. They really do keep the words going, and I want to know what you guys are thinking. Any predictions on what the next section will be? Any requests? I may not listen to them but I’d be damn interested to know if anyone cares enough to have them :P
> 
> Anyway. You guys have been great, as usual. Please do leave a comment on your way out, and I will catch you all next time. I’m VERY excited about next time. Feel free to weigh in on whether that’s a good or bad sign :D

**Author's Note:**

> While things in this series are planned out to a certain extent, I'm always anxious to check out prompts, or just to hear from you guys. Hit me up on Tumblr if you're so inclined.
> 
> http://cblgblog.tumblr.com/


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